Abstruse
by Bleeding Jazz Gums
Summary: Defenestrate- verb. 1. To throw  a person or thing  out of a window. 2. What Darcy Lewis wants to do to a certain God of Mischief all the time.
1. Chapter 1

For all intents and purposes, Darcy expected everything to go back to normal.

...

Well, as normal as you could get knowing there were different realms and guys wielding giant hammers that _made fucking lightening and holy shit _with brothers that were homicidal maniacs.

So maybe not so normal.

But she was back to, you know, looking for jobs because you can only go so far as someones assistant when they work for a top secret organization and you're not allowed to even know about let alone work in. Her resume is pathetic, barely taking up half a page; she's been putting off getting her food handlers card, partly because she's poor as hell and she does _not _want to work at a fast food place, since there's only one of two ways that could end up(either she continually snatches bits of food from the customers orders, or slowly goes insane from refraining herself from eating everything. She is fired in both scenerios).

However, she's now living on instant ramen and packaged peanuts from a vending machine in the lobby of her less than respectable apartment building, and she's not sure how much loose change is left lying around inbetween the cushions of her couch. She's also down to her last twenty four pack package of beef ramen that's diminishing fast.

So yeah she's kind of screwed but at least everything has gotten back under the pretense of being normal. Bosslady is acting a bit different lately(meaning: moping around like a teenage girl dumped before prom), but Erik is doing a pretty good job of keeping her distracted. She would like to help, really, but Darcy knows Darcy, and she would probably just make it worse.

Scratch that: she would _definitely _make it worse.

So, she has a lot more days off than she actually knows what to do with since Jane is more often than not called S.H.I.E.L.D.'s headquarters to do things she only occasionally understood anyway, though she'll still get texts on Tuesdays and Fridays to head over with the RV to the desert and watch their 'Spot' for the night.

It doesn't make much sense, since most of the equipment has wound up over at S.H.I.E.L.D.'s... wherever they had their sleepovers, and even if they still had it, she wouldn't know what the hell was going on anyway. She kinda suspects though that Jane only wants someone to check up on the infamous little patch of desert and make sure there are no surprises.

And if there are, to drag them immediately to her. Tasing if necessary.

...She kind of added that last part, but she's sure Bosslady wouldn't object too much over it. Secretly, of course.

Sometimes Erik comes with her. Usually though, she's solo; just the mention of a desert makes Janes face grow dark and stormy, and Darcy has no doubt that should she actually get it into her head to go, things would not end well. Probably _because _Darcy would be there.

So, there she is, driving a little motor home that held more space than her apartment in the middle of the desert in the dead of night. Now, when it's so quiet that even the hum of the blues-station she managed to find on the radio sounds loud. Her eyes are gritty, blurrying behind her glasses, and she's getting into the habit of rubbing them every few minutes. She really wishes she gave into temptation earlier and took a nap, but she had to wait for Bosslady's text; and of course she _knew _it would come, but she just couldn't risk not waking up. Even with Bruno Mars _blaring his horrible, angst ridden _music whenever Bosslady texted her, she could never really wake up from a nap. Blink blearily, sure. Maybe become coherent enough to adjust herself from whatever uncomfortable position she happened to fall asleep in. Actually become functional, like with thinking and moving around voluntarily and things?

Nope.

She didn't even try anymore. Fighting the tentacles of sleep required a will of steel that she just didn't have; she just let Bruno boast about catching grenades for her and squeezed her eyes tighter.

The point of the matter was, Darcy was tired, and she was rambling inside of her head, which was beginning to nod off. And her eyes were still gritty.

In the next instant her forehead meets the steering wheel, and she has a split second of absolute, overwhelming, thoughtless panic where she instinictively jerks the RV to the left. Sand and dirt fly up and she's blinded for long, terrifying moments in which she's jerked the wheel back to the right, as if she could magically straighten out the vehicle by will alone. Her elbow somehow(_impossibly, stupidly, stupid stupid stupid_) hits the blinker as she's forcefully turning the wheel. The methodic, unaltered ticking combined with her jackhammering heart and the crooning blues station was not doing anything for her nerves.

Which were currently being _fucking _fried alive as each second passed and she was still unable to get the RV back under control. Her left foot was currently pressing hard ontop of her right to stop the instinctual urge to slam them on the breaks.

Without the gas pedal being stepped on, the van is ever so slowly losing momentum, although the feel of hundreds of pounds of steel and metal lurching back and forth is going to surely make her lose her stomachs contents all over the dashboard. She gains enough sense through her animalistic panic to very cautiously, very slowly inch her foot over to the break and _gently press down._

She sits there, mouth and eyes wide open while her heart pounds an uncomfortable but kind of catchy rhythm on the inside of her ribs. The engine is still on, roaring it's displeasure at its recent abuse while the blues station croons of broken homes and broken souls; she can hear absolutely none of this over the blood rushing in her ears. It takes her awhile, she doesn't know how long, to realize that yes, she has come to an absolute stop and yes, she is still alive, praise Mary, Mother and Joseph and Buddha and whoever else is up there, she loves you please and thank you.

And that's around when she realizes she needs to get out of the RV and onto-relatively-solid ground. _Now_.

She struggles with the seatbelt, irrationally starting to feel claustrophobic until she finally unclicks it and manages to stumble out into the cool night, grabbing her taser only by reflex and silently thanking Mary, Mother and Joseph and Buddha that she'd wedged it in the middle console before leaving her apartment. She's breathing in great gasps of air that burn her lungs and make her eyes water, and she's still a little ways from the 'crash site', but she can't make herself get back into the RV. Instead Darcy takes a few steps forward and lets out a little shuddering breath before she straightens up her spine and continues.

It's chilly. The wind that whips her hair in her face is biting through her pitiful brown sweater and she mentally counts the ways she could kill herself with all of this sand for not having the forethought to grab a chair or an extra coat; by the time she's reached her usual Look Out spot(marked by a delightfully festive Christmas Coke Cola Santa flagpole she's had to relocate and replace about twelve times respectively), she's reached three and can think of no more.

Darcy half wonders if she should be disappointed in her lack of creativity.

Then reflects that maybe, concerning this, that's a good thing.

She's standing there next to a bent and pitiful looking flagpole with her arms hugging her middle, taser cradled like a small child in her arms when she realizes that something just _doesn't feel right._ There's an electricity in the air that's making her hair stand on end and, warily, she glances around the deserted landscape. Obviously no one is there, but there's something about being here that has her feeling uneasy; like she's being _watched_.

...Was Thor watching her right now?

Or any _other _Asgardian-dudes?

Pbbbft.

Perverts.

Her gaze immediately snapped up to the sky, eyes narrowed behind thick-rimmed glasses as she opened her mouth to let loose a stream of language she'd once overheard at a shady 7/11 she'd been visitting for a sugar-boost at midnight that had made even _her _blush. It's about then that she notices the sky is glowing.

"Well, fuck me sideways," She murmurs.

The next thing she knows, she's blasted back and is rolling around in the sand like a friggin' dog. For a split second, she's airborn; limbs spread eagle as she soars through the air before landing harshly in the sand. Her hair is in her mouth, sand is in her mouth, sand is in her goddamn _pants_; she's trying not to breathe in too much, but her mouth is wide open and she's gasping and can't seem to stop. A small, almost indistinct voice in the back of her head whines that she's lost her beloved Shocky.

Even with her eyes squeezed shut, the light is blinding and piercing and damn, she's going to have one hell of a migraine.

It feels like an eternity before the light clears. Spots are dancing before her eyes, her body is aching and her limbs are trembling as she painstakingly pushes herself up to her hands and knees. Sand's falling from her hair and clothes(and, oh, _ew_, her mouth), and it takes her a moment to realize that yes, yes there is a body now inhabiting the once clear space she had just been watching.

A very tall, very lanky, very much _not Thor _body.

In fact, she couldn't recall ever seeing someone with that physique come from that place.

Or that colored robes.

So would that mean...?

The body twitched. Horrorstruck, she couldn't help but watch as slowly, a head that she had not noticed was attached to said body raised.

A mouth attached to the head attached to the body then proceeded to spit out a mouthful of dirt. Everything after that happened very fast.

Their eyes locked. Coincidentally, that's when she decided to scream, scrambling back on her ass as she tried to scoot as far away from the very sandy, very pissed looking god. Her hand knocked into something hard and smooth just as he finally got to his feet, albeit swaying gently; without giving it any conscious thought, she gripped the taser and fired.

He went down like a sack of writhing, magical potatoes.

Oh...

...Shit!

"Oh _shit_!" She had to stay calm. She couldn't panic. Panicking would send her over the edge into bubbling hysteria, and then she wouldn't be able to think clearly to figure out what she needed to do. But she had just tased(_another_) god, and she was so sure that he was _not _going to be as forgiving as Thor had been.

Maybe she could leave him there...?

No, shit. What was that quote? 'The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Or the one.' She couldn't leave him there; the last thing the world needed was a very pissed off mage-god-magic-wielder-guy on the rampage, probably more than likely searching for the starved little college student that had tased him into unconsciousness. Darcy didn't think he'd be merciful to those who got in his way.

So, that left option two: take him with her. That way, if he woke up grumpy(and she so knew he would), then she'd be within easy reach. Innocent lives could be saved! Hundreds! Maybe even thousands!

Though she'd die. That would suck.

No! Think of Spock, think of Spock!

She had to get him to the RV.

She had to get him to S.H.I.E.L.D.

...Well, she had to try, at least.

Darcy shook herself, hesitantly raising to her knees as she peeked over to the still unmoving body. Looking around briefly, she was disappointed there were no rocks or sticks nearby. Nothing like inquiring about the life status of an unknown body than a good hard jab with a stick.

Hesitantly, she inched forward on her hands and knees toward the prone body. All the sand that had been stirred up was starting to settle in extremely uncomfortable places, but she had to be sure he was still alive. It would really suck if she was the one responsible to kill Thor's brother.

Then again, he was an evil bastard who had tried to kill them, so.

When she was close enough to make out the bits of sand settled into his cape, she carefully crouched down on all fours and, turning her body, cautiously poked the armor above his shoulder with the toe of her shoe.

Nothing happened.

Resolve boldened by this uneventful outcome, she scooted closer and nudged the side of his head. It tilted face-first into the sand.

Oops.

Okay, so the guy was obviously out cold. Now what? She couldn't leave him, and she certainly couldn't take him, except... Well, what other choice did she have?

She risked a peek at him from under her lashes, and withheld a groan. This was going to _suck._

Fifteen minutes later, and she had her arms full of unconscious god and was still about twenty five feet from the RV. The sand had _definitely _settled in uncomfortable places now, and was starting to turn out to be one of those annoying little details that really shouldn't matter in the grand scheme of things but still managed to bug the ever living hell out of you.

As it also turned out, crazy ass homocidal dudes that fell from the sky(even when they appear lanky as all hell, even decked out in armor) are _heavy_. Darcy was pretty sure that she was going to break her goddamn back going at this pace; hands fisted in his stupid bunched up cape, only managing to gain ground by dragging the god across the sand in short, backwrenching bursts of strength that left her panting and red in the face. Judging by the smooth indent in the sand, she'd only dragged him about four, five feet.

Well, fuck.

Huffing, she let go(cringing internally when he fell with a soft _pooft_ back into the sand face first) and stepped back to fully admire her handiwork. There was no way that she was going to be able to drag him all the way back to the RV before the sun rose; a quick glance at her dingy little Mickey Mouse watch confirmed sunrise in a little less than three hours.

So, okay. New plan.

Crouching next to the prone body, she scowled. "You're heavy," She began, spreading her hands as if to say '_Well what can you do?_' "And, believe me, I love back problems as much as the next girl. No one's arguing that. But this," She thumped her knuckle against his shoulder plate. "has got to go if we want to make any time at all."

She paused. Nodded into the silence.

"Yes, I agree completely. I promise I'll be extra, extra careful."

She shoves aside the green cape type deal to get a better look at the armor beneath, but for the life of her couldn't find a latch or tie or _anything _to suggest there may be a way to take the armor plating off. She sat there, fingers tapping impatient rythms on her knees as she studied the platings, bottom lip caught firmly between her teeth.

This was fucking ridiculous.

"Help would be really, really appreciated right now." Darcy muttered, peeking between her hair hopefully. Nope, still unconscious. Damn.

Wait, no. That was a good thing.

"God damn it!" She exploded, falling to her knees so she could plant both hands on his side and roll him over harshly, grunting. "What is _with _you guys and your need to fall from the sky and give girls heart attacks? Huh? Do you _enjoy _being tased? Kinky bastards!"

She thinks about kicking some sand onto him, but his face is already covered in it, and she was sure that if she had uncomfortable-sandy spots on her person, then he _definitely _did. And hell, she's already tasered him.

"You're so lucky." She informs him darkly.

It strikes her in that moment how absolutely _odd _it is for her to be kneeling in the middle of the desert next to an unconscious god that had just hurdled from another freaking dimension only-what? Twenty minutes ago?

She kind of wants to giggle, but doesn't know if she'll be able to stop once she starts. Instead, she studies him in the moonlight(holy christ, how corny is _that_?), and noticed that he looks tired, even asleep. Despite the dirt smudging his face, the bruises under his eyes were vivid, giving him a distinct vulnerable look.

Darcy knows looks are decieving, knows that honestly he could snap her neck without putting forth any real effort and stay guilty-feeling free afterwards. He is a god, _a god that will not be very happy with her once he wakes up_, a god that probably isn't very happy with anyone in general whether conscious or not, and most likely would not change his decidedly gloomy outlook just because a college student with a mild sugar addiction gives him a great big hug while softly humming Journey's _Don't Stop Believin'._

But she still kind of wants to, though.

She settles for brushing the sand from his face, feeling incredibly giving(_oh ho ho she is merciful and kind, _bow _to Queen Darcy_) and not a little dorky and self conscious as she reaches forward to brush and definitely not poke-kinda-punch the sand from his cheek.

As soon as her knuckles come into contact with his skin, his eyes flutter open and find hers, wide and glazed and sort of dizzy to look at while his eyebrows try to touch his hairline.

Her expressions morphs to that of surpreme surprise(mouth forming a little "o" as her eyes widen to saucer like proportions), and that's when all hell breaks loose.

* * *

><p><em>Let's just get this out of the way, shall we?:<em>

_I am horrible and weird and can't help myself when plotbunnies attack me with their little gnawing teefs and big green eyes and slicked back black hair in green cloaks and mmm._

_I mean. -bows head, properly chastised-_

_Second:_

_If I've eff'd anything up, please do not hesitate to inform me of this. I'm new to the Thor-ness, you guys. Any and all pointers and advice is so welcome.  
>(also would someone like to <strong>beta read me<strong>? That would be nice. I'd love you forever. I'd even let you get first dibs on a honey-covered Loki. No, really)_

_And, well, third: __I'm off to update _Delayed_. Once again, no, really._


	2. Chapter 2

One of the worst feelings in the world is suffocation. The feeling of your lungs burning, unable to draw in air, insights mind numbing panic and kicks in the primal instinct to _fucking breathe_ which in turn leads to struggling, thus further heightening your bodies need for the oxygen that you cannot get. It's a vicious feeling, made even worse by the fact that you are completely helpless to stop it.

That was _sort _of how Darcy was feeling.

She knew she wasn't breathing, knew that her lungs refused to draw in the much needed air and that this was a very, very bad thing, but it was almost as if she was experiencing it all through a thickly padded wall. '_It's all cool_,' the wall seemed to convey. '_It may be you but you're not experiencing it so it's all okay._'

Except it wasn't.

Miniature explosions were going on behind her eyes. Something white hot was drilling against her temples, fighting its way inside her head with sharp claws that _burned._ She wants to clutch her skull, dig her fingernails into her scalp to distract herself from the pain, but through the padded wall Darcy vaguely realizes that her hands are already busy clawing at her constricting throat.

Slivers of agony are slipping into her mind, slicing and scorching like hot glass.

Something in her revolted at this intrusion, cringing away from the hurt, almost as if fleeing from the constant burn, farther and farther away the further in the pain reached. She can't explain what it is, why it makes her feel so empty the more distant it gets, why she keeps trying to grasp at it with hands she's not entirely sure are real or not. _Wait_. Mental Darcy's voice is a bit slurred, and each word is a vicious stabbing pain, but she clumsily barrels on because she's suddenly terrified of what will happen if she doesn't. _Wait, come back. I need you._

Something rumbles, bounces off the too-constricting, too-tight walls of her mind, and suddenly that part of her is gone, emptied and washed away. And for a single instant, Darcy feels this emptiness more acutely than anything else. Not the muted physical agony of suffocating, or her mental anguish, but the absolute knowledge that part of her is gone and she can't find it, is reaching and reaching but she _just can't find it._

The glass slides in a moment later, all jagged edges and fire.

For a moment she thinks that it's going to start all over again, worse than before; like some kind of twisted nightmare now that it's finally gotten it's roots firmly dug in. She doesn't know how it could get much _worse_, but she's still trying to prepare herself for whatever horrific onslaught will be dished out next.

Except now the pain is _receding_, leaving behind a chill that soothes the burn. It's then that the wall doesn't so much fall or crumble as implode.

She rears up with a great gasp of air that doesn't expand her lungs fast enough. She's staring at something huge and blue-black that's staring back at her with hundreds upon hundreds of tiny, blurry eyes-

Wait. No. That wasn't right.

Were those stars?

She wanted to laugh. Which didn't feel right either, since she was sure she was about to throw up. Her mind was a little dizzy, seeming to recoil from the messages her body was sending.

_Sandy. Grainy. Chilly. Uncomfortable... Hungry._

Her eyes stung. It took her embarrassingly long moments to realize the reason the stars seemed to blur together was because she had lost her glasses.

Oh, no. Wait. There they are; right below her nose, half in her mouth. She didn't realize she had still been gasping.

Without much avail, Darcy attempted to settle her breathing into something resembling normal. Each time she tried to slow it down, her breath would shudder out past her lips and make her glasses rattle; she couldn't seem to quite find the strength to lift her hand and retrieve them. That was unfortunate, of course, but she didn't think too much about it, since she'd only had a cup and a half of instant ramen that morning and a bit of toast she'd stolen from Jane. What she actually really wanted was a nice nap...

"..._Damned foolish..._"

Hold that thought then.

"_...Wench_!"

Well, hell, if they were going to start calling her names...

_Nownow mustn'tsleepwake_ up.

Her eyes flew open.

Something pale was sneering at her. She thinks it was sneering. Maybe it was constipated.

Darcy blinked, and something that really fucking stung dropped into her eyes.

"Son of a _bitch_!" She croaked. Her eyes were blinking reflexively, tearing up and spilling over that did little to soothe. She's still panting, and the tiny little breaths were doing absolutely nothing for her lightheadedness. Besides making it worse, of course.

There's cotton in her ears(did she get that bit at the end of q-tips stuck in again? That was so annoying_)_, and the words are muffled when they reach her ears, but still distinctly raspy. "_Pitiful_."

Ohhh!

When she finds the feeling to her arms, someone was getting bitch slapped.

She's blinking furiously now, clearing the sting from her eyes and realizing she still cannot move and she should probably be worried about this. It isn't until the stinging and tears have finally faded from her eyes that the pale thing looming over her vaguely resembles a face. Darcy squints.

Ah, yup. That's a face alright.

It occurs to her that her mind might be more than a bit dizzy when the blurry image of the face tilts and turns a distinct shade of shimmery.

'_Is shimmery a color_?' She thinks fuzzily.

_Chit._

The voice is much clearer than before. She finds it not in her at the moment to really care why. She's noticing a pattern now, but she just wants to go to sleep...

"_Filthy mortal wench_!" The hoarse, muted voice snarls. Darcy is slightly ecstatic to learn her hearing is slowly coming back. Then the voices' words register.

"Ass." She slurs.

The suffocation thing is back, but now there's pressure with it, no wonderfully padded wall to block the physical from the mental anymore. She can distinctly feel fingers digging painful indents against her throat, and at the contact, her mind clears just a little.

"Let g...!" The rest of her sentence is cut off as the pressure intensifies; she's back to gasping for air, squirming weakly in a pitiful attempt to get away. With the feeling of losing oxygen comes the claustrophobia, and she just wants to get away. She _needs _to get away, needs to get freed _right now_ because she's choking and dying and oh god, _oh god what is she going to do please someone help_-

She's lifted, the pressure easing up until she can finally suck in air unhindered. She doesn't know if this is done on purpose or not, but at the moment, with the gray receding from the edges of her vision and the fog being lifted inch by precious inch from her mind, she doesn't care.

"_Where am I?_"

The face is pressed up near hers now, close enough that she can see bruises and pale flesh and sharp angles but still not touching. Something green and distinctly glowing is staring at her with such cold calculation she shivers.

As if sensing the dire intensity of the situation and is determined to try to ruin it, her ears pop. The sudden shift makes her eyes water.

She still can't quite make out the exact expression, but by the way they scoff and toss her back to the ground hints towards not so veiled disgust.

"You are pathetic." The distinctly male voice sneers. She still can't see, but silence has taken on a hint of hesitance, as if no one is quite sure what to do next.

A gentle breeze tugs at her hair. When the silence stretches into unbearable, she finds the nerve(and her arms) to scramble for her glasses. By the time she slips them on, she's alone.

It's been about three days after her little rendezvous with a certain psychopath in the desert. If the way he had sent a giant metal Death Machine to smoosh everyone into unsightly stains hadn't been a tip off that the guy was just a little unhinged, then almost having her throat ripped out by him confirmed it. Loudly.

Darcy figures she deserves a few days off for somehow managing to look death in the face and escape relatively unscathed(her hand twitches, wanting to stroke the still vivid marks at her throat, but she mercilessly squashes this urge). After his little disappearing trick, she'd sat shivering in the cold until the sun rose with her knees drawn up to her chest and her arms wrapped around her legs, staring at absolutely nothing. She had half crawled, half dragged herself back to the RV that was still running because she was absolutely convinced that her liquefied legs would not be able to support her weight.

The blues station was still on. She had laughed until her stomach ached, tears streaming down her face until she had forgotten if she was laughing or crying. Darcy had only barely managed to drag herself up and over to the drivers seat because she was suddenly afraid that having left the stupid thing going, she wouldn't have enough gas to make it back into town.

She had caught her reflection in the mirror, and all thoughts vanished at the sight of angry bruises on her throat.

'_How?_' She remembers thinking dimly. '_How did I escape this?_'

The thought has been plaguing her since. She thinks it's more along the lines of if she was fucked up from just _watching _Badguy drop down to Earth, how must _Badguy _have felt? Never mind the fact she had _tased _him.

Not well enough to slaughter a hapless college student, apparently.

Another reason for her self-induced hermit attitude is that she knows she needs to get in contact with Jane. Despite that minor moment of misplaced sympathy in the desert, she knows that a very dangerous, very lethal god has just arrived in New Mexico and could(scratch that, _does_) mean all sorts of death and destruction and mayhem and whatnot.

But the thing is, _she can not get a-fuckin'-hold of Bosslady._

Not via email, Facebook, her twelve hundred year old beeper, or phone.

Her last status update had been, 'Going out, bye bye Internet' and tagged with Darcy.

Which she most certainly was _not_.

Jane doesn't(read: can't) talk about the happenings of S.H.I.E.L.D. with her, and usually, she's cool with that. She's just a piddly little intern after all, and something as big as S.H.I.E.L.D. just can't afford to babysit her. She's pretty sure the only reason she's not in jail or having her memory zapped or something is because Jane has vouched for her, for which she's eternally grateful.

However cool it would be to come face to face with Tommy Lee Jones, she has a slight phobia of big flashing red lights that wipe memories, 'kay thanks.

It's not like this hasn't happed before; Jane disappears for a few days, doesn't answer her cell, and then comes back and demands to know if Darcy has been productive or not.

Which, no. No she hasn't.

But this is important, damn it. They're not exactly being all that subtle, Darcy reflects while nibbling her Poptart, kidnapping her boss every other week or so. So can't they just give her an emergency number to dial? They needn't even have to pick up. All she'd have to do is dial it in or press a number or something and they'd instantly know, '_Oh shit you guys Badguy in green has crash-landed we're all fucked we should probably do something about this._'

And, okay, yeah. She honestly didn't think she was very important when it came to all this crap either. Seriously, what could happen to _her_? Her, _directly_?

Apparently, they'd all been wrong.

On some level, that shouldn't make her feel triumphant. This was a very serious situation after all.

She proceeded to shove a mouthful of Poptarts into her face and continue watching I Love Lucy, curled up on Jane's couch.

She justified all of this by reasoning that when Jane came back from 'disappearing off the face of the Earth', her first stop would be her apartment.

Not the I Love Lucy reruns, though.

She just loved her some Ricky Ricardo, the cheating bastard.

Darcy is finding it all kind of hard to feel a lot more... Well, apprehensive about everything. But it all felt so gloriously _normal _to be staying up late, eating toaster treats and burning her retinas in the ethereal glow of the TV light. She had never been one to really know absolute total normality, so the pretense of it was nice. Kind of like her own little getaway spot from the total fuckfest that was her life. For a while, she could pretend that she wasn't poor as dirt and her boss wasn't trying to get in a gods pants(or vice versa) and she had said gods brother very pissed off at her or that she had just suffered a very real, very near death experience.

She knew she was going to have to address all of this and more soon enough, but for now, she was content to let Lucy's whiny cry lull her to sleep.

_"_Wahhh_!"_

* * *

><p><em>Okay, show of hands. Who out there knew that the guy who played Ricky Ricardo from I Love Lucy was actually a cheating bastard?<em>

_It's true, look it up. I know what I'm talking about. I'm a doctor._

_As always, constructive criticism of my shortcomings and blatant failures are always appreciated._

_(PS...Can you tell I went italics happy in this one?)_


	3. Chapter 3

It was to Darcy's not so pleasant surprise that when she woke up that morning, it was to a man in a black suit watching her about three inches from her actual face.

"Goddamn!" She proceeded to try and scoot her ass as far up the couch, and coincidentally away from the creepy, albeit strangely familiar dude still staring at her, as she could.

"Miss Lewis."

"Jesus Christ." Her heart is about to explode. What was it with people and trying to get her heart to explode?

"What," His tone is carefully neutral, devoid of any suspicion she is now certain he's feeling. "Are you doing in Miss Fosters apartment?"

"I can't take a nap on a friends couch?" She snarks back, using both hands to push the ratnest that is her hair from her face. Usually she's chill around guys like this because, hell, who wants to get on the bad side of someone who wears a suit? But by the way the sun is only _barely_ peeking through the blinds, she's judging she's only got maybe four, five hours of sleep-_tops_-and she does not smell coffee, nor does she see the offerings of donuts or any other sugary treat in the hands of the man in front of her.

One eyebrow arches up. "Does she know of this arrangement?"

Her eyes narrow to slits. A very unmerciful reply is on the tip of her tongue, one that she very, very much wants to let loose. Instead, in a move of restraint that would've made even Gandhi envious, she said, "Does she know you're in her apartment at some God forsaken hour?"

"She is the one who sent me," He replied smoothly, effectively taking the wind from her sails. God damn it. "That still does not answer my question, though." Silence, for long moments.

"...I have to pee."

He blanched. Darcy wanted to cackle.

He-she could not remember his name! Didn't it start with a C? Coltrane? Cosby?- stepped back to give her room to stumble off the couch. Her legs were stiff and one foot was asleep, already beginning to tingle unpleasantly, but she took a resolute step forward and managed not to pitch herself across the coffee table. Her triumphant expression evoked absolutely no reaction from Cosplay.

"Are you quite finished?" He asked instead. Darcy frowned. Standing up while her foot was asleep without falling was a feat that'd taken weeks to perfect.

"Dude, what are you doing here, seriously?"

"Miss Foster has asked me to acquire some notes." He replied smoothly.

She wrinkled her nose. "You've been looking for notes? What, in her underwear drawer?" She pointed an accusing finger. "You're one of those closet perverts, aren't you? Oh my God! Were you in her closet too?"

Silently, he held up a tattered old pocket notebook and raised an eyebrow.

Oh.

"...I'm going to go pee," She declared, hobbling off. By the time that she came back out, Janes hairbrush and guest toothbrush having been put to good use, she was actually sort of surprised to see that Cosplay hadn't left and had instead taken up residence in Janes kitchen.

"You're still here?" Certainly a rude way to go about it, Darcy, but why not offend the secret government official first thing in the morning?

"Obviously."

Well. Cool then.

Rattling the Poptart box sitting on the counter, she was delighted to realize that she still had one S'more treat left. None to offer Cosplay. Usually she'd feel merciful enough to at least split the treat with a guest, but, well, that is the punishment of waking her up.

Pushing the little lever on the side of the toaster, Darcy realized that the semi-annoying hum in the background was the TV.

"Dude. You didn't turn off the TV?"

He hid a superior smirk(she just knew he did) behind Janes notebook, eyes not even bothering to raise from scanning the contents. "I was told to retrieve Miss Fosters notes, not to attend to her home."

"But you had enough time to give me an oh so pleasant wake up call, eh?" She asked dryly. Wisely, Cosplay didn't reply.

Rude.

Turning around so she could face him while leaning a hip against the counter, crossing her arms in the process, Darcy couldn't help but open her big mouth. "So, like, what're you still doing here?"

That got him to look up.

"...Er, what I mean is, why are you still here?" Shit, that still sounded offensive and slightly suspicious. "Shouldn't you be out doing... Iono, Secret Agent-y things? Assuring the public we're alone in the universe? Wiping memories?"

"I could wipe yours, if you like." The quick reply was delivered with such a straight face that Darcy's eyes narrowed.

"Are you pulling my dick?" She demanded.

His expression grew even more somber. She was sure then that he was, and she scowled. "I'm not sure if I approve."

"Of?"

"Your presence so early in the morning."

He didn't even bother to hide his smirk that time.

"I am definitely not sharing my poptart with you."

"Good. I wouldn't want it, even if you offered."

At this, she couldn't help but snort. "Bro, do you even realize what this is?" She waved the empty box tauntingly. "This is a S'more poptart. Y'know, campfires and charcoaled marshmellows and all that jazz?"

He didn't respond. Darcy gaped.

"Dude, you've never had s'mores? That's it. I'll split this one with you. No need to thank me, I already know."

He sent her a dubious look. "...I believe I'll pass, Miss Lewis."

"What?"

"I have very specific..." Now, he sent a slanted look to the toaster. "...Tastes."

That bitch.

See if she shared her poptarts now.

Opening her mouth to reply, Darcy was interrupted by the wail of a siren. Tensing in surprise, her head instinctively snapped towards the living room.

"..._Everything in rubble_!"

Eyebrows furrowed, she hesitantly stepped back into the living room. Her eyes immediately locked with the TV. They widened.

"_We're here downtown where apparently a huge battle is being taken place-buildings and roads are being destroyed... I'm... I'm getting word here that there have been no casualties,_ yet, _few injured, and_-"

It looked as if the cameraman and reporter were trying to get closer to the scene without actually having to physically do so, gaining ground only when it sounded like the battle was getting further away.

Dropping herself onto the couch, eyes never leaving the TV, she didn't react when the front door slammed.

On screen, men and women in blue uniforms were shoving people back. After a brief, furiously whispered argument, the reporter started shouting again.

"_We're being evacuated! All civilians are being evacuated from the area. Those who are stuck in their homes, we're being told please, do not leave! Stay inside your homes! For your own safety_..."

The news reporter was frantically going on, both he and the cameraman being roughly pushed back by police officials with hard expressions.

The camera was still trained on the battle, and Darcy couldn't look away.

Roads were in ruins, and buildings weren't doing much better. Entire chunks of brick were missing from many shops' walls, lampposts ripped from concrete and sent sailing through the air. The cameraman was obviously having difficulty hobbling backwards while still trying to film; the camera was being bounced around wildly. When the twat tried to zoom in on the colorful specks in the distance that were moving at speeds that actually made them blurs, she started to feel a little sick.

When a small SUV managed to hit one of the colorful blurs into a nearby tourist shop, she actually had to sit down. Scratch that, she was going to be sick.

Something cold and hard echoed through her mind that sounded like a _laugh_, and Darcy shivered.

"_I repeat, stay inside your homes! For your own safety, you are_-"

A face, a very, very familiar face filled the screen. There are muffled screams and curses while thin lips pull back in a malicious smile.

"Be sure to get my good side" is all he says, tone disturbingly light if not downright playful-and then he's gone.

Her heart is racing, but it feels like her blood's been replaced with molasses. She can smell her(um, Janes) poptarts burning, but the strength to get up is dangerously lacking.

The urge to panic and grip her hair by the roots while she apologizes over and over again is starting to set in and her stomach is rolling violently at her efforts to stamp it out before it takes over. She can not afford to let a panic attack to set in, first of all; and second, did she really have anything to apologize for? It certainly wasn't her fault a psychotic maniac was on the loose, tearing up New Mexico as he saw fit. It certainly wasn't her fault that nobody knew about it till now.

She was the one who wanted the special number to dial or a Bat signal or something so she could get in contact with S.H.I.E.L.D. None of this was her fault, damn it. She shouldn't be feeling like she was the one who had just wrapped one of the blue and red blurs with a steel-wired fence, using it as a bat to-oh shit, that one had to have hurt-hit the red blur floating in the sky.

The thought _Home run_ echos in her mind with sadistic glee, and Darcy feels cold.

She tries to shrugs this off(she's always had an off-filter sense of humor, so stray sarcastic and sometimes downright mean thoughts aren't too odd for her), but there's something about the thought that just nags at her.

A large explosion on screen makes her jump and hit her shin on the coffeetable. The pain is sharp and starts throbbing immediately, but now she's sufficiently distracted; she can look away from the TV screen and force her thoughts from dark paths. Her legs are a little weak, but they hold her nonetheless when she stands up and quickly hobbles to the kitchen and pops up the crispy black poptart from the toaster that's billowing smoke.

Her eyes are starting to burn, but she's honestly terrified that if she blinks, she's going to break down into something resembling a pile of useless blubbering girly-hormone goo.

She'd been standing there, staring into space with watering eyes for a few restless minutes before Darcy began to realize that just because she couldn't see the TV, didn't mean she couldn't hear the explosions or shriek of metal grinding on metal, the sound of a woman screaming in the distance or-

_Weakling_, something whispers.

She hadn't even realized she'd covered her ears until she slowly lowered her hands, volume returning to normal. She tries to focus on one thing at a time, anything really, but there are too many thoughts swirling around in her head and the only one that's really sticking is-

Oh, damn.

'Impossible,' She thinks, totally resolute. 'Totally and in all other ways inconceivable. Wait. I'm not Sicilian. Is that copyrighted? No, it's okay, I just won't tell Goldman. It's still impossible though. There's no way in any universe that it's possible. Nope. Nope. No.'

She's starting to freak out.

Self sacrifice is all well and good for trivial things; like, passing up those powdered donuts in the store because you need tampons, or going a week without heat because you splurged and bought your boss expensive gifts from Victoria's Secret and now can't afford to pay the bill.

But Darcy is not a... A... A _super hero_. She doesn't do sacrifice. Look what happened the last time she pulled a Spock quote out and tried to don her glittering cape; she almost had her throat ripped out by a god.

There was no way she was actually thinking of something so goddamn_ crazy_.

"God dammit," She says, grabbing her keys on the way out.

She is more than halfway to the RV when she realizes that she is still in her rubber duck jammies.

_Aw, hell._

Darcy takes a moment when she's finally in the drivers seat. Her hands are clutching the steering wheel so hard her knuckles are turning white while she stares off into space. An elderly woman two cars down is watching her with mild suspicion.

She wonders if it's too late to kick her legs like a toddler and scream, 'Iowanna!'

Probably.

Sighing, she threw the RV in reverse.

The thing is, Darcy has no real plan. Darcy is not a planner. She just does things. If they don't work out, well, that's okay. If, by some miraculous twist of fate, they work out?

Even better. Usually though, no forethought is involved. Her beloved taser has more than once lended a bit of courage to a thoughtless-situation; though now, she is very much aware of how taser-less she really is. After her little adventure in the desert, it had taken her an embarrassingly long amount of time to realize she had not, in fact, brought it back with her. She'd torn the RV apart looking for it.

Nope. Nada. Zilch.

She'd entertained the thought of going back and searching for it... For about three minutes, before she realized that even if the possibility of Badguy coming back to the same exact spot at the same exact time she would be there was about one in a trillion, she found her courage severely lacking. She just wasn't absolutely sure she could handle seeing that stretch of desert again without thinking, _'Oh, yes, I remember. This is where I was thrown back, this is where I landed... And hey, this is where I suffocated! Cool beans_!'

When the back of the RV-lightly, lightly- taps the car behind her, she realizes she has not been paying attention and, oops, should probably take her foot off the gas now.

The old woman definitely looks alarmed. Now, put it in drive and gently press on the gas, avoiding all attempts at eye-contact...

When she is safely on the road(?), that's when the panic and self-doubt started to set in. She was crazy. Wasn't she? No, of course she was. No sane person would even contemplate doing what she was about to. Darcy consoled herself with the fact she probably had a tumor pressing down on her brain and wouldn't've had long to live anyway, which would explain her absolutely downright ignorant idea try to play keep away with a pissed off god.

Switching on her blinker, she groaned.

* * *

><p><em>Sorry for the late update, ladies and gentlemen. Lately I've been working on a new fic for Rurouni Kenshin that I've had bouncing around in my mind for quite some time. I will definitely not be posting anything until I have all the chapters finished and editted.<em>

_As always, any pointing out of any mistakes are greatly appreciated._


	4. Chapter 4

This was crazy. Batshit insane.

No, correction. _She _was batshit insane. She must've had a lead-paint crib as a child... That or she was dropped repeatedly. There was no other viable explanation for why she was now currently swerving through traffic, heading towards what most likely will be her doom.

In her jammies, no less.

'Crazy,' she thinks to herself and attempts not to facepalm the steering wheel. 'Crazy, stupid, _nut fuck whacko._'

Her palms are slick, sliding against the steering wheel when she tries to turn. She grips it harder, hard enough for her knuckles to turn white and start to ache. Her teeth are worrying her bottom lip, and when she swipes her tongue acrossed it, she tastes pennies.

She's starting to recognize where she is now and realizes she's not too far from her destination... Even though traffic would have given it away by now. The road's thinning out; cars around her pulling into driveways or making blatant U-turns in the middle of the road, others plainly abandoned with doors still open and motors still running.

She's got to drive straddling the lines now to avoid said abandoned vehicles. She doesn't want to imagine how completely embarrassing it would be to wreck the RV now, only blocks away from where she's suppose to be.

As if in answer to her prayers, hell decides to rain down upon her. Literally.

There's a moment where the sound of twisting, shrieking metal drowns out everything else. It takes her back to when she was ten, and her mother had gotten just a little tipsy and decided that they just had to take a trip to Chuck-E-Cheese right then and there, and ending up driving on the wrong side of the road. Her nails are digging hard into the scalp behind her ears, palms pressing against her ears in a feeble attempt to block out the noise. It does nothing to drown out the following explosions.

They weren't that loud, but the sheer force of it rocked the vehicle. Her foot slipped from the gas pedal as she tried to curl into herself.

Something robotic shouts from behind, "Get the car under control! _Get it under fucking control!_", and it takes her a few minutes to make the words out and understand their meaning she is so dazed, in which the voice has escalated past yelling to positively _screaming_, and she thinks maybe she shouted something back like "_I'm fucking trying!_" before she realizes she's pulled the wheel too hard.

And then they're rolling.

It wasn't like in the movies where the hero's car does repeated, impossibly long rolls and then lands in a comical heap uninjured or back on all four tires with the hero still sitting safely in the drivers seat as the obnoxiously strong seatbelt holds them into place. In fact, they didn't even get enough momentum to do more than half a roll; a neatly abandoned, running SUV stopped them. On its side now, Darcy dangled a moment in free-air, oblivious to everything around her; as soon as the RV had tipped itself onto two wheels, her mind had drawn a blank.

Her arms and one leg were dangling with her. Something around the vicinity of her ass protested against the abuse.

"Oh my god," The same voice from before groaned. "You are one crazy broad."

Her seatbelt snapped, sending her in a tumble of limbs and a wordless, surprised shriek into the passenger side door. Like a lightswitch being flicked back on, her mind jolted into awareness.

"Holy damn!" She gasped, trying to claw her way from the undignified mess she'd landed in. "Jesus Christ. Jesus. I think I peed my pants."

"You and me both, sister."

With one hand clawing the passenger seat and the other holding on for dear life on the dashboard, Darcy was hesitant to raise herself up completely to see exactly who was talking. Taking a deep breath through her nose, she slowly peeked over the passenger seat into the back of the RV.

Correction, into the back of the absolutely _totaled _RV. There was a gigantic, vaguely-human shaped hole in the roof where sunlight quite cheerily poured in. Water from the miniature sink was spurting out from the broken faucet, the small fridge door hanging on just barely by one last screw. And there, standing in the middle of it all, was a robot attempting to shake an empty box of Wine Coolers from its foot.

"God damn- Teenagers- brings back memories, empty Coolers" Was all she could manage to make sense of from his distorted muttering. For once, Darcy was speechless.

After a few(relatively) silent moments, the robot looked up at her. "What's your problem, girlie?" Then they did a palm-to-face. "Shit, right, the suit."

Darcy has opened her mouth to reply-with what exactly, she doesn't know, but she bets it's something that might get her ass kicked-when an explosion rocks the very vehicle they're sitting in.

She clutches for dear life onto the passenger seat, nails digging into the leather as a rough robotic curse echoes in the sadly destroyed RV.

"Listen, girlie," The voice is much closer now, and Darcy has to bite the seat-shoulder to stifle a shriek when a gold and crimson head pops up to scan the street through the front window. "I have no idea why you're finding the need to _now _go through downtown, but you should probably scedaddle. Fast."

The next explosion threw her against the passenger side door, earning a pained gasp. Squinting through watery eyes, the crimson 'bot jerked its head up in a very human-like fashion and cursed.

"Alright then," It mutters warily, leaning over the seat and scooping her up like a toddler, cradling her suprisingly gently to the lukewarm metal. "Hold on tight. And try not to scream."

'_That's never a good sign_,' she thinks a little dizzily. She doesn't quite know what's going on when the robot raises the arm not holding her, palm flat out facing towards the windshield, but when the palm begins to glow her stomach drops to the balls of her feet.

Light explodes, and Darcy is afraid for the first time in her life she's going to faint. Pain is bursting across her face at random, beginning at her right temple and hopping across her face like a stone skipping across water until finally stopping at her exposed collar. Somewhere above her, someone curses.

'_Glass,_' She thinks blearily. '_Glass from the windshield._'

The windshield that had just _exploded in her fucking face._

Darcy came back to herself with an uncomfortable jolt. When she attempted to get her barings and looked around, she suddenly very much wished she hadn't.

'_Bad, bad, bad,_' She thought, definitely not panicking. '_This is bad, this is so bad, so, so bad._'

She is several stories above any nearest building, suspended over open air and forced to put her trust in something that makes her brain vaguely try to catch her full attention when she looks at them. She opens her mouth, intent on spilling her guts to them about what exactly had happened to her-

_As if that would make any difference now, _a gleefully snarky voice whispered in her ear.

-and possibly projectial vomit everywhere, but at least it would be out and the misplaced sense of guilt and masochistic duty the whole thing had sparked in her would be lifted from her shoulders.

"Dude, dude, no, wait," She said. Or she thought she did; where did her voice go? For that matter, why were her clothes sticking so uncomfortably to her body? Why did it feel like her hair was being pulled from her scalp, hair by individual hair? And what the hell was that sound? Like she had left the TV on the nature channel again, volume uncomfortably loud as they showed scenes of beautiful, roaring waterfalls... "Dude, can you hear me? I don't care. I don't even-" It was getting harder to breathe. Why...? "-Care. Listen... T'me..." It was so hard to breathe. Where was the air? "Got... Gotta..."

She couldn't finish, and instead began grappling at her throat. There wasn't any air. Jesus, what happened to all the air?

Gasping, mouth opened wide, throat and lungs working to get any oxygen it could. Her eyes are fluttering, and she can't quite find it in herself to even be a little bit amused in the back of her mind at the cliched grocery market romance book of it. Her eyes are fluttering, and there are dark spots dancing in her vision.

Darcy's starting to float a little now. The spots have turned into a wave that blocks all light. No sunshine. No blue sky. Nothing.

_Poorlittlelamb,_ low, breathy chuckling. _Lost her way. Lostsomuchair doesitbringback memories?_

She wants to scream.

It's a voice.

There's a voice and it's not hers.

_Little lamb lost,_ it croons. She doesn't know if she's awake or not, if all of it is a dream induced from too much sugar or not enough food or slipping on her way out of Janes shower and cracking her head against the towel-rack. She's still kind of conscious and aware though, isn't she? Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

_Little lamb lost where'syourshepherd?_

No, no, no. She was okay. She was alright. It was a dream. You always woke up right before you landed, wasn't that right? She was going to wake up any minute now.

_Runrunrun__._ It's like it's bouncing off invisible walls, assaulting ears she's(pretty) sure aren't real. Something like a shiver, but not, passes over her. Sentences are jumbled, like they're said too fast and the one speaking is stumbling over the words. _Wolf isatyourdoor littlelambwhatwillyou do now?_

No. No. She'd like to wake up now. She get's the message, no more pizza before bed. Please? Anytime would be nice.

_Runrunrun as fast as little lamb can..._

The darkness was suffocating, damp like a mirror after a hot shower and biting like a late December night. She tries to disconnect herself, has no idea how the hell to go about something like that and doesn't even know what to disconnect herself _from_.

...She thinks that's what frightens her the most.

Soft clucking vibrates along her spine. _Must notbetrying hard enough._

If she could just _scream_...

_Like music__,_ the voice sighs.

No, no, no no no...

_Yes, yes, yes._

No, she can't handle it. Can't. There's too much everything; darkness, cold, not enough air, she needs to get out, has to get out of...

"..._Here!_"

Confusion. Confusion and a ringing, hollow snarl.

"_Gotta... In... Girlie!_"

It's like she's suspended in midair... Trapped in that one infinite moment where you realize that you're falling off of your bed. Half asleep, your mind doesn't comprehend that you've rolled off the bed and you're about to hit very solid ground. For that one moment, you don't understand what's happening. Suspended in mid air, it's like the brain slows the process down. That was how Darcy felt-suspended in mid air, nothing to cling or hold on to. Knowing, instinctively, something bad is going to happen and all you can do is try to prepare yourself... Even if there's not enough time to do even that. Even if it feels like you're-

"..._Dying! Wake _up!"

She jerks against hands holding her down, gasping hard and dragging in the air to her lungs as fast as she can. There is no thought, just simple, raw instinct as she claws hard against anything in front of her as she tries to scoot herself away by feebly flopping her legs.

"Damn it- Jesus, girlie, calm down! You're alright!" A voice shouted above her. Darcy felt rather reminiscant of her night out at the desert... Ears full of cotton, chest constricting with the effort of breathing. And while usually Darcy was all for reruns, this one just pissed her off.

"Girl! _Girl_! Calm _down_!"

But she can't, because finding control of her limbs is requiring a strength of will she just doesn't have at the moment. All of her attention is drawn to the burning in her chest and lungs... And the words ringing in her head.

_Fool! Run and hide... Notforlonglittlelamb._

And that's when Darcy did something she never thought feasible.

She fainted.

* * *

><p><em>It was longer, but then I accidently pasted only half of it from Word and had to retype most of what I remembered...-flail-<em>


	5. Chapter 5

Darcy was a little confused. She had been minding her own business, walking along a very lovely path full of muttering tulips, when she'd been very rudely dragged away to a table full of poptarts and teacups. At the head of the table was Cosplay, clad in a very lopsided, multicolored suit and top hat and donning the most monotone expression she had ever seen. Beside him was a twittering Eric, tugging almost obsessively on long floppy ears while whiskers twitched nervously. In the middle of the table was a yawning Jane who had her tail in front of her and was twisting it adorably. And hey! There was Thor, cute as could be in a little waistcoat, banging his pocket watch against the table and then start to nibble on it.

What really grabbed her attention, though, was the solitary smirk of fangs floating lazily above the table. It takes a minute, but suddenly a striking green eye appears above it, curved and glittering. Its twin quickly appears, and slitted pupils lock onto her.

The smirk widens into an impossibly large grin, distorting the eyes and making her glad she couldn't see the rest of the face.

'Won't you stay for tea?' Cosplay drones.

_Yes, _the grin seems to say. _Won't you stay?_

Something like dread coils in her stomach.

'No, I really must be going.' She tries to say, tries to back up. That grin is showing far too many teeth for her liking.

_Must you? _Green eyes dancing.

'Yes, I really must.' But she doesn't sound as sure as she'd like.

_I'll find you, you know._

She can't reply.

_You can't hide from me._

Oh god. Oh god.

_Not from me, little lamb._

Darcy wakes with a gasp.

For a few terrifying moments that take her breath away, she has absolutely no idea where she is. The pristine white walls aren't hers, nor is the unbelievably soft bed and comforter she's rolled up in. It's not that she's complaining, really, it's just it's a little odd.

Something flutters down into her line of sight, making her eyes cross. Frowning, she reaches up and tugs it from its perch on her forehead-and the strands of hair it had acquired as well, ow-and squinted at the little piece of paper.

'_Miss Lewis, we regret your involvement in yesterday's affairs and will cover any medical costs you deem necessary._

_We would appreciate your silence in this matter. Thank you._

_P.S._

_Your appearance in yesterdays affairs _will _be looked into. Look forward to our call._'

Aww, fuck.

Groaning, Darcy crumbles the note up and tosses it to land where it may. Could she not catch a break? Seriously?

Out of habit, she throws her arm over to the nightstand for her glasses and is pleasantly surprised to find that they're actually there. The moment she slips them on, it comes to her; '_Janes bed. Janes walls. Janes apartment. Oh._'

Of course. Darcy may be at the point of squatting, but she still had enough taste to take down the horrendous wallpaper the last tenants had put up in her apartment and paint over the disgusting yellow daisies.

Well, mostly.

Wall paper is surprisingly difficult to take off with just a spatula and glass cleaner.

Jane's too-white too-pristine, colorless walls made her eyes squint with the effort of looking at them and should've been her first clue. Thank god this was all in her head.

She needed coffee.

Throwing the covers back from her body, Darcy is made very much aware of all the crap her body has recently went to. She feels like one big bruise, throbbing in time with her heart and Jesus, ow. Very, very slowly, she clenches the muscles in her arms and legs and tries to assess just how bad the damage is.

Apparently, a lot. Good lord, everything hurts. _Everything _hurts so damn bad, she actually feels like weeping. She hadn't felt this sore since she took up kickboxing for that one week.

Still. She wants coffee.

There are too many thoughts running around in her head as she crawls out of bed like a ninety year old woman with a bad hip. Little flashbacks from yesterday(had it been yesterday? She needs to check her phone... Speaking of, where the hell was it?)kept attacking her mind like those freaky piranha that can pick a bone clean in under ten seconds. Not to mention her _dream_. Ugh. She does _not _want to pick through memories and subconscious hoohah to discern what was real and what wasn't. To be fair though, she'd been doing that since the day she'd met Thor. Adding in his freaky very much homicidal brother, a girl needs a break.

She definitely was not avoiding the issue.

The trek to the kitchen is a tricky one. She tries not to tense her muscles too much, but she still needs to _move_, and every step is like agony. In her mind she's already set about the halo and golden glorious glow around that first cup of coffee, and it's that mental image that keeps her going. Especially when she drags her feet too much and gets it caught on the rug, sending her stumbling forward and having to actually put forth effort so she doesn't end up a messy heap on the ground. Her body literally screams in protest.

By the time she actually makes it to the kitchen, the barest slivers of light are just beginning to peek through the curtains, and the little neon green lights on the microwave cheerfully inform her of the early hour. She groans.

It takes even longer to get the coffeemaker ready... Seeing as how she has to reachfor things. She wants to sob when it's time to get the filters.

_No one _better question her determination and perseverance after this.

The first few pops of the water boiling has her sending up a grateful prayer. When the scent of freshly brewed coffee teases her nose, her faith in god is renewed.

"Thank you, Jesus." She sighs gratefully, snatching a huge mug from Jane's weird little coffee cup rack on the counter. The constant ache dims in comparison to the final heavenly paradise that was just begging for her love and attention with its heady aroma and deep brown depths.

And then it's there, burning hot in her hands and already beginning to deliciously relax the muscles in her arms. The sheer bliss of it is enough to have tears spring to her eyes.

Blowing the steam away, Darcy has just touched the rim to her chapped lips and turned around to head to the table when she sees him.

As relaxed as you please, sitting at Jane's kitchen table with his chin in the palm of his hand and a teasing bemused smirk ghosting around his mouth. The air has stopped circulating in her lungs, and it's like she's been doused in freezing water.

_Frozen_, the voice whispers gleefully.

The smile becomes more pronounced, and she's suddenly reminded of slitted pupils and fangs. Lips scorched numb, Darcy vaguely realizes that she still has the cup pressed to her mouth. She can't find it in herself to move.

With sudden clarity, Darcy realizes she may very well be about to die.

Slowly, she regains feeling back in her body. When she's absolutely certain that she won't choke to death and save the smug bastard the trouble, she tips the mug back and takes a careful sip.

"Good morning."

_Poor little lamb, no herd to hide in._

She can't help it; she jolts, sloshing hot but not blistering coffee over the rim and over her fingers. She hisses. "Stupid son of a _well respected woman_!"

"Such an eloquent little mortal wench, aren't you?" The God of Mischief, seated at _the fucking kitchen table _at six in the_ fucking morning _comments in the most patronizing tone she's ever heard, even from Jane. Cold and calculating. A window is thrown open in her mind.

White hot rage explodes across her mind, blinding her.

"It was _you_!" She seethes, violently slapping down the cup of coffee on the table. Glass and muscles protested.

"Me?" Green eyes crinkle at the corner, but there's no emotion in them. "Whatever could you mean, little mortal?"

Darcy sputters. "You son of a-! You _know _what I mean!" And suddenly, Darcy doesn't care that she's about to throw obscenities-and possibly much more-at the god seated with his legs crossed at the ankles and looking vaguely amused. She didn't care he could snap her neck or... Or make her blood disappear from inside her body, or magic her inside the mouth of a dinosaurs chewing jaws.

The voices. The fucking _voice _that had assaulted her dreams and even when she was awake-taunting her, spewing cruel jibes, making her question her _sanity_-had been his.

The coldness, the emotionless tone... The vicious edge, as if its owner found humor in horrible situations..

It was _his._

Son of a _bitch._

"You asshole! How fucking dare you barge into my mind like that?" She was shaking now, hands curling into fists on top of the table. He hadn't reacted at all... In fact, if anything, he looked bored.

'Oh,' Darcy thinks darkly, wanting blood. 'Oh, I'll show you _bored_.'

The voice-_his voice_-was silent in her head, too.

"You get the _fuck _out of my goddamn head right now before I shove this cup of coffee so far up your ass you will cough up the bits of roasted beans I used to make it. Do you know how fucking rude it is to take up residence in someone else's brain? How invasive that is? Do you know the emotional fucking turmoil this shit has put me through? _Make. It. Go. Away. Now._" And because she knows she's walking a very fine if not invisible line now anyway, she can't help but add, "Or I will fucking _end _you."

She bounces off the ceiling and cracks her head against the fan before she even realizes that she's moved. Her not so pained as startled gasp dies in her throat, and all that manages to escape is a pitiful squeaking noise.

"Now, listen here little mortal and listen well." Eyes narrowed dangerously, he is still reclined in Janes chair and looks to have not moved an inch. When she tries, she finds that she _can't _move. "I have done things that even your worst horrors could not be inspired to recreate. I have seen nightmares come alive to form breathing entities that could swallow your world whole. I could end your life, wipe every thought anyone has ever had about your entire existence in an instant. And you dare threaten _me_?" He barks out a laugh that sounds anything but amused. "Your species arrogance will be your downfall, I think."

To Darcy's bafflement, a dark expression flits across his face then.

And then, quite unexpectedly, he flings her across the room.

Adrenaline is pumping hard by the time she realizes she's become like a human paper airplane; which is about three seconds before she hits the cupboards and has the marble counter to cushion her landing.

Something inside of her _cracks_ at the impact, and the pain is instantaneous. It steals her breath away and makes her vision go dark before flaring back to life.

She doesn't recognize when she hits the tiles, only that there's now a second body occupying the space next to her and is doing some pretty obnoxious gasping. But maybe that's her. Or is it them?

She's rolled over, and the feeling of cool tile is pleasant against her skin, sending goosebumps down her spine.

"_What have you done to me_?" The voice and his lips are in sync, and Darcy isn't quite sure who is speaking. She blinks a little blearily, and ever so hesitantly, his face comes into focus. It's close and furious, eyes no longer blank but instead lit with fury. Darcy had already opened her mouth to respond when she was interrupted.

The silence was thick. Comically, both of their eyes had widened at the noise and they laid there staring at eachother, frozen.

"Someone's at the door." She finally whispers; it seems to snap him from the sudden stupor.

The vicious grin that stretches his face takes her breath away and leaves her trembling.

"Not for long."


	6. Chapter 6

"What?"

But he was already gone.

_Tsk tsk. Too slow._

"Shut the fuck up," She snarls under her breath, rolling herself to her belly so she could inch herself up. Panting now, she scuttles forward on her hands and knees to the entrance of the living room.

To Darcy's surprise, she found him standing next to the coffee table. She wasn't sure if she should count her lucky stars or cash them in for a refund; so she withholds judgment while cleverly attempting to get on her own two feet using the entryway wall.

"What the hell are you doing?" She hisses at him, no less threatening now that she was clutching onto a wall.

From where she could partially see his face, Darcy noticed that it was tense. Upper lip curled in obvious distaste, eyes faraway, the jaw line distinct against hollow cheeks as if he was gritting his teeth.

His eyes slanted towards her when she spoke. "I am getting rid of the distraction." Teeth flashed in a vicious smile that seemed, to Darcy, just a little forced. "So that _you _may have all my attention and more, little mortal."

That certainly sounded a little ominous.

"Wait."

"Make me."

Oh no.

They are _not _playing Who's The Better Five Year Old.

She's snapped to attention when he takes a step forward as the knocking resumes. Horrified, Darcy lurches forward. "Wait!"

She says it a little louder than intended since the knocking stops immediately afterwards, but at least he stops too, even if he does turn a little to shoot her a cold look.

"Wait," She says again, much quieter. "Wait, wait, what if I... What if I get rid of them?"

_...What?_

"What?"

Darcy swallows hard, and can't seem to pitch her voice higher than a hoarse whisper. "What if I get rid of them... For you?"

And she can see that makes him come up short. His eyebrow rises after a moment, eyes calculating as they observe her. She doesn't dare move or turn her gaze from his, more afraid in that moment what would happen to the unsuspecting visitor if she should come up short in his observation. Precious seconds pass.

Darcy jolts something fierce when he suddenly appears in front of her, knocking her back against the wall and mouth opening wide to shout at the agony the move inspires in her chest.

No sound escapes as she's shoved roughly against the wall, long hands and fingers pushing hard against her upper ribs. Her chest is heaving and her mouth is still open, head tossed back as she claws at carpet and tile. Tears are squeezing past her clenched eyes, and she can't seem to stop them as fire burns its way to her very _bones_.

An eternity later, the fire is doused with ice. Everything is suddenly so blissfully cold.

The hands are gone then and she slumps, panting.

"You have two minutes." He whispers near her ear. Darcy shivers. And then he's gone.

She scrambles up with much more ease than she expected, considering how she'd probably very literally broken her ribs with the little flying stint. Slowly connects the dots... And turns a complete circle around the middle of the living room, looking for him.

'It wasn't possible. There's no way...'

Cool air crawls caressed her neck. "A minute forty."

Darcy sprints to the door.

"Um. Who is it?" She calls hesitantly, voice breaking in the middle in her effort to be nonchalant. His voice in her mind chuckles, making Darcy scowl.

"Fed Ex. I've got a package here for a... Jane Foster?" A distinct male voice responds.

Huh. A package for Jane... Bosslady had never really let her touch her mail before. Probably with good reason, but that's technicalities. With Bosslady gone...

No, wait. Concentrate, Darcy! Must not lose focus!

"Um, come by tomorrow!"

"...But I'm here now."

"Yes, but Jane's not. She'll definitely be here tomorrow," Probably. "So just... Yeah, shoo."

"Look, lady." The voice is deeper now with irritation. "I'm here now, you're here, so why don't you just sign the paper and I can go on my way, yeah? I've got other places to be."

_A minute ten._

"Look," Darcy's voice is rising. "Just _leave_, okay? Just fracking leave and you can come by tomorrow and Jane will be here and all will be good and fine and fucking dandy."

"Lady, I don't know what your problem is, but this is getting ridiculous. Just sign the damn paper so I can leave."

_Ninety seconds._

"Leave!" She shouts hysterically. "Would you just fucking leave already?"

"Fine! Jesus Christ, lady."

"Thank you." Darcy sighs, resting her head with a light '_thump_' against the door. She hears the faint "_Bitch_" from the delivery guy as he stomps down the hall, and has to grit her teeth from shouting out the "_You're fucking welcome!_" that wants to explode from her throat.

"Bravo." A bland voice behind her says. Darcy whirls around with her heart racing.

"You!" She says, pointing an accusing finger. Adrenaline is pumping hard now, lending a sense of false confidence she clings to like a blanket. "You- You.. _You_...!"

"Handsome fellow?" He piped up helpfully. "Attractive beast? Charming, quick witted villain? Irresistible evildoer? Come now, little mortal, you were doing so well earlier."

_Cat got your tongue? _He continued in her head.

"Bastard!" Darcy snarls. He smiles very slightly and shrugs good-naturedly.

"Well, yes, that too." He comments dryly.

Darcy takes a deep breath and counts to ten. She gets to three before he interrupts.

"And what, exactly, are you doing?"

"Counting to ten."

"Whatever for?" He honestly sounds curious, so Darcy thinks she can't hold it against him. That much.

"So I don't end up fucking throttling you here in Jane's Martha-Stewart living room."

"You could certainly attempt to do so, I suppose. I doubt there is a force on this plane or any other that believes you would succeed though."

"If I had my goddamn Shocky, it would." She mutters petulantly, completely ignoring she's starting to win Who's The Better Five Year Old.

"Oh, you mean this?" Her jaw drops when he holds up her beloved taser between thumb and forefinger

Time actually seems to stop.

"You've had it..." Her voice comes out in a stunned whisper. "...The whole time...?"

The grin is slow to coming, but it's definitely there.

Darcy is seeing red.

"You _ass-_"

"Now now, little mortal. That tongue of yours will get you into trouble someday." He clucked his own tongue reprovingly and made a scissoring-motion with his fingers, and her taser disappears. "I could help with that."

Very slowly, she glared. His response was only to shrug and drop his hand. The silence that followed was decidedly... Awkward.

If there was one thing Darcy could do, it was alleviate an awkward situation, a skill that's definitely come in handy on more than one occasion since she was usually the one who caused the awkward situation more often than not in the first place.

"So," She asked tiredly. "Do you want waffles or pancakes?"

* * *

><p>This had to have been the weirdest breakfast Darcy had ever had the pleasure of participating in, <em>including <em>the first time she met Thor. At least Thor had been human then, even with his freakishly inhuman strength. She hadn't been so much afraid then, as she'd still had her taser and was busy being amused at him scarfing down pancakes. Plus, he'd had a puppy dog face. How was she supposed to be afraid of someone with a puppy dog face?

With his brother, it was an entirely different experience.

Even if he did give Thors pancake eating time a run for its money.

Darcy finds that she's periodically switching between heart-thumping fear and indifference every few minutes or so, give or take. She is very much aware that the being sitting acrossed from her is a fucking god sent(banished? Kicked out? Ran away from? Taking a vacation?) Asgard who could very well make her eyeballs pop out of her skull without looking up from his syrup soaked plate, and she was tasorless. She knew that asshole still had it on him, too... Darcy wonders if she could somehow slip it from his pocket without him noticing.

Did Asgardian armor have pockets?

What would they even put in them?

_Concentrate, lamb. _His amused voice drifts in through her consciousness, startling her and once again igniting that rage that someone, god or bro, dared fuck with her mind. _Didn't you have questions waiting to be answered?_

'Fuck you.' She snarks back, because the voice of the God of Mischief has to be a lot safer than the actual God of Mischief sitting right there in front of her.

_I don't believe that's a question, but I suppose I'll answer nonetheless. No._

"I see you're having a discussion with myself without me." His voice cuts in, amused and razor sharp.

"Huh?"

_As said, so eloquent._

'Eat me, Greeny.'

_The answer is still no._

She watches him tap his temple, and then scowls when understanding dawns. "Oh, you ass. You couldn't have just answered out loud if you heard what I was thinking?"

A bite with minimal waffle and swimming in syrup pauses in mid air. "I couldn't hear what you were thinking. Cannot," He corrects, looking none too happy, even as he bites into the sugar soaked treat. "I cannot hear what you're thinking, little mortal. No more than you can hear my thoughts."

But that... Didn't make sense.

_Do you ever just stop and listen?_

"I suppose what is irksome the most is that I have never heard of a situation such as this happening." He looks vaguely troubled before taking another syrup-dripping bite of waffle, and Darcy has the insane urge to giggle. "And mind you, little mortal, I have heard many tales. Read more books than you could... What's the mortal saying? 'Lick a stick at'." As if proving this point, he stabbed his spoon at her. "I shall refrain from pointing out how ridiculous your human sayings are, since I'm sure you're already aware. Although perhaps not. I have been observing your kind lately, and I must say, you all are dreadfully oblivious."

Forget tasing, Darcy was going to reach across that stack of waffles and _punch him in the face_.

_That would not end well for you_.

She was willing to risk it.

_Are you?_

"Ignoring that," She said pointedly, and he shrugged as if to say _'Oh well.'_ "Ignoring that, I have a couple questions."

This time, he rolled his eyes. "If one of them is going to be _Why me? _Or _Is this for some higher purpose? _Then consequence be damned, you'll boil here, little mortal."

It took most of her willpower to continue to look unimpressed.

His biting smirk told her he wasn't fooled for a moment.

_God of Lies, lamb. You're a few centuries too young to deceive me._

"Okay, I've got one." She waved her own fork at him accusingly. "What's with the nicknames?"

He only stared.

"What I mean is," Darcy clarified. "You call me 'little human' which I think is suppose to be patronizing or some shit and it totally is 'cause I don't call you Tall Asgardian because that's racist and that shit is wrong, but your thoughts or your voice or _whatever the hell is in here_," She jabs at her temple, coming dangerously close to skewering herself in the eye with her fork. "You call me 'lamb'. So. The hell's up with that?"

He was still staring at her.

She was starting to fidget.

"Loki." He said finally.

"...Loki?" She blinked. "What the hell is 'Loki'?"

_If you have to ask, _his voice murmured. _Even I will not tell you._

Huh?

What would that...

...Oh!

_Oh_!

"You!" She blurted.

He-_Loki_, she thought-cocked a brow at her, but didn't elaborate any further.

Huh. That brought her to her next question.

"Why are you being so nice to me?"

If possible, his eyebrow arched _higher_. "Pardon?"

"Well, I mean, you're all..." She gestured. "_Polite_. Out in the desert you were like, 'Rawr! Mama said knock you out!' and tried to kill me literally with your bare hands, and then like, you go on this rampage in town and demolish half of it, then you're _here _eating waffles with me at Jane's table!"

"...Did you hit your head as well when I tossed you into the wall?" He asked blandly. "As you obviously don't recall the occurrence that happened no more than an hour ago. Also, what does that say about _you_?"

Huh. He had a point. It probably said that she was an honorary member of Loony Toons, but she already knew that now, didn't she? She didn't need to point that out to him though so moving on... "That one doesn't count, dude. You only did that once. Plus..." And here, she grinned slyly. "I'm pretty sure you _healed _me right after. Which was pretty cool, by the way. Even if it did hurt like a bitch."

"Oh. You thought I was doing that to be 'nice'." Darcy was quick to learn that though the god could seriously pull off the patronizing smirk, she had seen no rival to his shit-eating grin. "That's adorable."

_God of Lies_, the Loki in her mind reminded her, but she reluctantly let the matter drop. For now.

"Okay. Well, lastly, and probably most important," He didn't look impressed, but she went on. "_How _did this happen? And how the hell can I get rid of it?"

"That was two questions," He pointed out-ignoring her muttered reply of 'nitpicking'. "And while it usually brings me pleasure to point out others' faults, I hold no pleasure in correcting your sentence. How do _we _get rid of it." Darcy could only stare at him, uncomprehending.

"What are you talking about?" He didn't reply, opting instead to take the bottle of syrup and pour the rest of the half of it over his near-empty plate. "I thought you said it wasn't your thoughts I was hearing..." She went on slowly.

"They are not."

"Then why would _we_...?"

Darcy must have been a little slow that morning, because she just couldn't wrap her head around what he was trying to say. There was a vague tickling in the back of her mind, but even his voice was silent.

She had just resigned herself to the fact that she probably wouldn't ever really know-unless he gave her back her taser or she somehow managed to take it, of course, then she'd shock him to the floor and keep going even as he's writhing for mercy-until he cared to elaborate, had reached for the powdered sugar to sprinkle over the last of her waffle, when it hit her.

She blinks hard. Jaw goes slack a moment later when the realization really hits home. Gapes like a fish, mouth working.

"No _way_."

The half lidded apathetic stare he shoots her is answer enough.

Darcy bursts out laughing.

* * *

><p><em>For those who say Loki is OOC(which, yeah, he is just a bit) all will be explained in due time. I was originally going to make this story from Darcy's POV... But I find my fingers itching to write out what Loki must be thinking during all of this.<em>

_-lifts up sword, points at screen- What say you?_


	7. Chapter 7

Loki will, however much it may grate, admit to the resilience of the little girl who had tossed her head back and began laughing just days before. And perhaps a tiny bit to her audacity as well. So few had the nerve to laugh in his face, fully aware of who he was and what the consequences of such an action-more so, he could hardly remember the last time someone laughed _at _him. Even Thor(idiotic, brash, childlike _Thor_) knew better than to do such a thing.

It was then and there that he decided the mortal woman must be mentally impaired.

_Hey,_ her voice, loud and obnoxious, echoes in the confines of his mind. _There's no need to be rude, Cranky pants._

He wants to pinch the bridge of his nose, but he knows it will do nothing to quell the building headache.

_Poor baby,_ she sneers.

'I will end you.' He promises.

_Ohhhh, I'm shaking in my Converse._

'Hn.'

_You're such a bastard. Dude, when are you going to tell her what happened? If I know me-and I do!-your mysterious shit is going to drive her nuts._

Ignoring the fact that what sort of villain was he if he wasn't even a tad mysterious(and the fact that it was just _so _much fun to toy with others), why should he feel any need to explain _anything_ to a miniscule slip of a girl? He owed her nothing besides possible retribution for that little stint she'd performed when he had arrived.

That had been a surprise.

And in fact, it had been that surprise that had him refraining from going out and finding her and crushing that slender neck in the palm of his hand.

Well, that, and...

_You're a talkative bastard, aren't you?_

'Quiet, filth.'

_Filth! I'll show you filth, you no good rat bastard piece of pie eating...!_

'Insults with baked goods? Your vocabulary must be severely lacking.'

_Eat my shit!_

'Lovely.'

Loki could count the number of times he has been truly horrified on one hand. Most of them had in some way or another recently occurred, and those had been unexpected and unprepared for. But he had handled it; granted, not in the most honorable of ways, and the end results were less than satisfactory, but he _dealt _with it. He didn't run or hide or pretend everything was _so lovely, so fine._ It had not even occurred to him to do such a thing. His first reaction had been to put his Allfather into a coma, albeit not intentionally. Everything just seemed to fall after that.

So Loki's initial reaction was to go a tiny bit mad with power. He thinks-in a morbid, detached-amusement sort of way-that it definitely could have gone better.

But that wasn't his problem at the moment.

No, his problem was in the form of a brunette who had had the nerve to laugh in his face, wipe the tears from her eyes after an obnoxiously long amount of time convulsing in giggles, and asked him if he was serious.

Or, more accurately, what the irritating chit had unleashed upon them both.

_Hey! _Her voice pitched higher in her irritation. _Why me?_

'Whose first instinct, when confronted with a fallen _god_, is to touch them?' He shoots back easily.

Really though, _who _did that? Absolutely disregard any thought for their safety so that they could touch an unknown entity that, in all likely cases, stronger in most possibly _every way_? If he had learned just one thing from observing these pesky, irritating humans, it was that they were terribly oblivious, but at least most had a sense of self preservation. This one seemed to have been born without one.

How delightful.

_Ha! _The irritating little humans voice piped up smugly. _Aren't you forgetting something, asshole?_

Oh. Right. Drat.

A snicker was his reply. He instinctively snapped his teeth in warning.

_Oh please. _She snorted. _What can you do to me? S'not like you can do anything to her, either. You're pretty much helpless, oh great asshole._

Damned if she wasn't right.

Not for the first time, Loki cursed the mortals ignorance... And sheer dumb luck. Traveling through space and time, not to mention the events before that, had weakened him to a point where his magic had been bubbling dangerously close to the surface. He had been in a, as distasteful as he finds it, _weakened _state of being when he had finally arrived on Earth.

_In that oh so attractive heap,_ is slyly murmured through his consciousness. _Are you still spitting out sand?_

'Quiet, chit. I may still dispose of you, one way or another.'

_Right_, she snorts, drawing the syllables out obnoxiously. He ignores her in favor of watching the clouds. Frivolous, to be sure, but he was in desperate need of quiet... Something he was beginning to realize was futile in light of recent events.

_You're going to have to explain sometime._ The girls voice says, subdued now and with none of its earlier lip. _If you don't... I don't know what she'll do._

He snorted humorlessly. 'Step in front of an oncoming bus, I expect,' he thought with distaste. However much he found it distasteful, though, she had a point; at some point, he was going to have to inform the little mortal twit of their... Delicate predicament.

_Hey,_ the sense of a shrug brushed against the inner workings of his consciousness. _Least you can be content in the fact that even if she does try something, it won't be half as creative or horrific as what you can do. Yeah?_

'Excellent point,' He allowed. Still. Even if the female didn't immediately get herself maimed or killed(by himself or otherwise...), there was still the possibility that she could go to the human woman Thor was infatuated with. Foster? Yes, Jane Foster. And however much the Internet had told him otherwise, he refused to believe that humans-even those as close to eachother as 'sisters', blood related or not-would put another before the safety of themselves. Though the Foster woman had shown an amazing lack of awareness towards her self preservation in the past, it was no where near the sheer amount of personal safety the brunette had disregarded.

_Darcy,_ she suddenly grumbled. _You can't keep referring to her as 'twit' or 'female'._

He certainly didn't see why not.

_Because, you jackass. You want her to like you, remember?_

No, he certainly did not remember this. When did this become part of the plan? He thought he just had to avoid killing her. He could've done that(maybe). He's not interested in becoming her best friend; he's absolutely not interested in her feminine talk, going on about her _hopes _and _aspirations_.

_She tasored you. She tasored you while you were stumbling up like a homeless drunk, spitting out sand from your face. I think the last thing on her mind to talk about with you is her hopes and dreams._

He must have gotten the logical bit of her awareness. Damn.

_It makes sense though, doesn't it?_ She pressed, unmoved by his growing ire. _Become her friend. Play nice. She won't want to immediately turn you into Eyepatch... Remember, if you go in for 'debriefing', she will too. And there will be a lot of uncomfortable questions._

'Hn.' He pulled his lips over his teeth and smiled viciously. 'And weren't mortals so intent on their comfort?'

It takes a couple of days-it's so hard to find good help(_I don't know why you don't just read their minds or something_, she complains, but where's the fun in being a master manipulator if he can't put his skills to good use once and a while?)-but eventually he finds out the perfect opportunity to pay another visit to his dear little human.

A dinner.

Adorable little Jane Foster, inviting S.H.I.E.L.D. members into her home for a little get together, hoping to break the ice that had frozen over when the little human was found around the area he had been having a bit of fun at. Apparently, the girl wasn't as trusted as Miss Foster regarding the secrecy and secrets of S.H.I.E.L.D.

This would undoubtedly make his job more difficult, but Loki always enjoyed a challenge.

_You realize this isn't a joke, right?_ The girl(_Darcy_, she points out nastily)says, breaking his train of thought. _One wrong move, and you both will be in deep shit. Despite what you may think, these people aren't idiots. One slip up, bro, and it's the glue factory for both of you._

He didn't dignify that with a response.

_Ugh! Will you quit being a prick? I'm trying to help you!_

'Why?' He doesn't even try the calm and collected appearance. She is in his mind, touching his magic, arguably knows him better than any who had met him before. 'Why are you trying to help me? _Me_? Do you not want to be reunited with your original host?'

_...I don't know._

He is not so easily dissuaded, however. '_Why_?' Loki insists, furious with her sudden silence. 'You were so intent upon being heard before. Why so silent now? Hmm?'

She didn't reply.

'Good.' He sneers, back in good humor. 'Time to, as they say, crash the party.'

He gets up from his spot on the roof, barely spares the bustling city a look before he takes a measured step forward, and is confronted with Miss Fosters apartment. He is across the street, though his view of the lot is only obstructed by a few lonely passing vehicles. A sad looking four-door car, beat up and appearing to be on its last wheel, turns and putters into the lot and takes a vacant spot in front of the building.

Loki leans against a streetlight, hands in his slacks and leisurely watching the ditzy brunette stumble from the vehicle, catching herself at the last minute on the glass of the door.

With her forehead, he notices with a smirk.

He senses that the Darcy in his consciousness wants to comment, but only ends up sighing.

'Good girl.'

The sigh turns to a snarl, and his smirk widens.

...Before disappearing completely at the appearance of a man in a black suit, coming down the steps and heading straight for the girl.

You did know there were going to be S.H.I.E.L.D. agents...

She ventures cautiously. His upper lip curls in distaste.

_Wait. Wait, what're you doing...? Loki? Oh shit. Dude, don't kill him!_

He was already across the street, long legs eating up the space between him and the chattering Darcy and amused looking Agent. She's half in the trunk, digging out plastic bags full of food and passing them off to him as she saw fit. Both arms are loaded when Loki finally reaches them, and swiftly snaps up the next bag she hands out.

"What the...?" Her head pops up, peeking up from the side of the trunk up at him, glasses askew. He quirked his brow and smirked.

"_Son _of a- _holy christ oh god jesus ow!_" He turns away from her convulsing form, content in letting her clutch her no doubt throbbing skull where she had thwacked it rather impressively against the trunk.

"Hello." He says smoothly, extending his free hand towards the narrow eyed Agent. "I'm Darren. Darcy's l-"

"_Friend_!" She shrieks, having successfully untangled herself from the vehicle and throwing herself in front of him, arms spread. "Cos-_Buddy_! Can you... Can you go take those groceries up to Jane? I can get..." She chokes a little. "_Darren _here to help me with the rest.

"...I was unaware we'd be having an extra guest." The Agent(Buddy? Hm, no, that doesn't sound right at all) said smoothly, eyes darting suspiciously from the girl to himself. His disguise was flawless, he knew, and offered a friendly-if sharp-smile at the scrutiny.

_Cocky._

'Confident,' he corrected.

The little human laughed nervously. "Um, well, the invitation I got was 'Darcy plus one'." She gestured wildly behind her, nearly smacking him in the face. "This is my 'plus one'."

"...I see." He said, in a voice that betrayed absolutely everything. Loki withheld the urge to chuckle. For now.

_You're such a bastard._

'Yes,' he thought cheerfully. 'Yes, I am.'

"I'll just be going then," He went on, pursing his lips on obvious disapproval, even as he turned and went back to the stairs. Without a backward glance, he climbed them and disappeared from view.

"What the _fuck are you doing here_?" She whisper-yells at him, spinning around furiously and nearly smacking him again with her wildly flailing arms. "How the fuck did he not recognize you? More importantly, _what the fuck are you doing here_?"

"Are you not happy to see me?" He makes his lips turn down at the corners.

"You're an _asshole_. Answer me. One minute, you're there infront of me, glaring like I just stole your crayons, then you _disappear _and I have to explain to the newly returned Jane why there are two plates at the table and all of these uncomfortable questions-" She's panting hard now, face red in her fury. Her glasses are still crooked. "-And I don't see you for days, not that that wasn't a fun little anxiety trip, but your voice won't shut the fuck up and... And..." Chest heaving, she buries her face in her hands and groans. "Just please, tell me what you're doing here."

He opened his mouth-

_Play nice! _Her voice said frantically. _Play nice, damn it!_

-And snapped it closed with a glare.

The little human flinched. Somewhat comforted now, Loki clears his throat. "He didn't recognize me because I did not want him to recognize me. You mortals are so blind, I didn't even have to put much effort forth towards it at all." He shrugged lightly. "As for why I'm here?" At this, he grinned. Slowly. "Why, I'm your 'plus one'."

She actually face-palmed, and Loki couldn't help but toss his head back with a bark of laughter.

"Ugh." She sighed, scrubbing her face with the palms of her hands. "Ugh. Fine. Okay, whatever. But here's the deal, okay? I won't tell them you're a lying sack of poo, and you won't go crazy and make the mashed potatoes come to life and kill us all. Okay?"

Again, Loki shrugged. "Why not."

He stared in fascination as her expression hardened into something some would refer to as deadly intent, and held out her hand purposefully.

"Swear it to me, God of Mischief. I want your word you won't harm any of the people inside that building."

"And how do you know, little human, that I will keep to my word?" He inquired curiously, staring down at her extended hand with amusement.

She didn't even bat an eyelash. "You said you would."

What? He never…

Inside his mind, Darcy whistled.

He cocked an eyebrow and looked her up and down appraisingly. "Clever girl."

She doesn't budge.

Smirking, Loki reaches out and clasps her forearm with hand, relishing her jolt of surprise. "You have yourself a deal, little human."

She didn't let go; in fact, if anything, her hand tightened its grip on his arm. He could sense the graveness of her attitude in the solemn, searching way she studied his face.

"Fine." The girl said shortly, dropping his hand and spinning back to the open trunk. "But you still have to help with the groceries."

_Wha-psh._

* * *

><p><em>Oh, mentalvoice!Darcy. Whose side are you on, anyway?<em>

_I'm not so sure if I'm happy with this, but I'm pretty sure this is as good as it's going to get. For Loki, at least. Maybe. I just can't get inside his head like I can with Darcy._

"I have enough people who are not myself inside of my head now, thank you," Loki says frostily.

_For now._

"What?"

_What?_


	8. Chapter 8

Darcy had to smother several instances where hysterical giggles want to burst out, going so far in one moment that she was forced to bite one of the plastic bags to avoid doing so. That earned a rather incredulous stare from the God of Mischief, and a long suffering sigh from his voice inside of her head.

This was just too surreal.

A hundred questions were flying through her mind, each one butting the first out of the way before she could fully comprehend them. She didn't bother asking him any(she was still gritting the plastic bag full of dill pickle chips and cheese-and-bacon dip between her teeth), and knew that even if she could form coherent questions, he probably wouldn't even answer her anyway. Or give her some weird riddle instead of a direct answer.

_Intuitive, aren't you,_ he droned.

'Quiet, you.'

_Oh yes, you certainly put me in my place._

'You smell and I hate you.'

_I am a disembodied voice. I cannot smell._

Damn it.

If she were to be honest, she was a tiny bit relieved at this banter. It took her mind off the more dangerous questions that kept coming to the front of her mind; like if Loki knew exactly what was going on when he magically arrived out of thin air in front of Bosslady's apartment. And if he was really going to keep his promise.

_You humans_, his voice said, disgusted. _Are vows so easily broken between you? Pitiful._

'Not between all of us,' Darcy allowed. 'I just don't want the whole deal to be null and void because suddenly you decide hey! She's a puny human, what could she do?'

There was a pause.

_I will not break my word._

And the odd incredible thing was, Darcy believed him.

'This is so fucked up.' She mentally sighed. He didn't reply.

They climb the stairs in silence. She's pretty sure he's content to let her stew in her own nervous anxiety since she is, after all, bringing the guy who tried to kill and/or enslave them all home for dinner.

She bets that tickles him to death.

They reach the door to Jane's apartment. Darcy is(pretty) sure she won't burst out into crazy-laughter now, and spits the slightly damp grocery bag into her hand before she turns and aims a deadly, I-Will-Be-Watching-You-At-All-Times stare at him. He doesn't flinch, but she contents herself with the idea that he is a shaking puddle of fear on the inside.

"No funny business," She hisses at him from the corner of her mouth.

His lips twitch. "No jokes, then?"

Darcy was just about to jam her elbow into his ribs for that one when Jane jerked open the front door with a heavy lidded stare that practically screamed '_I have the cops on speed dial you possible murderer rapist bad person!_'.

"Who is this?" She said accusingly, clutching onto Darcy's arm with bony fingers and sharp nails.

"Ouch! Jeez, ease up on the bodily harm, will you?" She said petulantly, jerking her arm free of her bosses grasp and rubbing it. "This is Danny."

"Darren," Loki corrected.

"Yeah. Darren. I call him Danny. Inside joke."

"Riveting." Jane deadpanned. "Now, why is he here?"

"I'm her 'plus one'." The asshat piped up again, obviously unable to _keep his mouth shut_.

"Uhm, Darrel-_Darren _is here because I invited him. I mean, the more the merrier, right?" Darcy was raising her nails to her mouth to begin her anxious biting when Loki's voice snapped her to attention.

_Do not!_

'What? Why?'

_You bite your nails when you are nervous or lying, _he cautioned. _Be assured, I am not the only one to notice._

Jolting, Darcy realized he was right. With as much casualty as she could muster, she raised her hand up the rest of the way and ran it through her hair.

"Hey, I brought home a guy! You should be happy for me," she joked, feeling sick.

Bosslady's stare was still suspicious, but Darcy could see the older woman softening at the idea of romance. Oh, god. She hoped the woman didn't start crying. She had that look in her eye she got whenever a chick flick came on TV, and that just didn't bode well for anyone.

"Also, they didn't have pie." She went on hurriedly, sidestepping behind the God of Mischief and shoving him none too gently through the door. "So I got No Bake Cheesecake, is that alright?"

"I- hey, wait! Darc- aw, damn it." Jane's half mumbled protests combined with Loki's wide eyed look of disbelief at being manhandled had Darcy biting the side of her tongue so hard she tasted pennies.

Catching Cosplay's stare from the corner of her eye, she ducked further behind Loki.

"We'll just take these to the kitchen!" She said cheerfully, pushing harder. The extra shove must have surprised him, because Darcy couldn't think of any other reason he'd let her manhandle him like this.

A sadistic little voice in the back of her mind that was certainly there before Loki arrived whispered that maybe he liked it?

A bark of vicious laughter rang out in reply.

"Woman," He hissed just as they crossed the threshold into the kitchen. "What is it that you think you're doing?"

"Saving our ass! Whenever Bosslady gets that look on her face, you gotta move fast or she'll beat you down with her logic." Darcy let out of a sigh of relief as she set the groceries down on the kitchen table.

"Beat me down with her logic," He repeated, obviously amused.

"Hey, don't make fun. I've seen her do it. She can reduce a grown man to tears with the tone she uses."

"Fear courses through my veins." He deadpanned.

Giving him her best stink eye, Darcy opened her mouth to respond when who else but fucking _Jane _walks into the kitchen.

It takes her less than three seconds to realize what a bad idea this was.

"What did you say your name was again?"

_She is so transparent, it is embarrassing._

Darcy squashed the urge to jump to her boss's defense because, hell, despite being a total asshat about it, he was right. Bosslady wasn't exactly famous for her poker face, but that didn't mean she couldn't pull one off if the right moment called for it. No, Jane's real weak point was her voice; she could ice over her eyes and harden her expression, but no amount of facial deadpan could disguise the quiver in her voice or the trembling of her lower lip.

The accusation and suspicion in her voice was so blatantly apparent, Darcy had a hard time _not _being offended. Was her bringing a guy home really such a foreign idea?

"Jane." Her tone had the older woman's gaze snapping immediately to hers. "This is my friend, Darren. Darren, this is my boss, Jane."

"Pleasure." He purred.

Bosslady didn't reply, opting instead to search Darcy's gaze. After a moment, she dropped her eyes.

"Nice to meet you," She mumbled, barely jerking her head in a nod. "Um, I'm just going to start on dinner now." Apologetic eyes raised again, locked with hers. "Darcy, would you... Do you wanna help?"

_No_, Loki decided.

'Oh, be quiet.' She retorted, tired. Surprisingly, he obeyed. Darcy nodded. "Alright." She made sure to hiss a '_Be good!_' to the passing Loki who looked to be heading towards the living room. His smile was charming and totally meant to be disarming and she wasn't fooled for a damn second.

While she was a little grateful to Jane who looked to be properly chastised as she asked Darcy to peel and quarter potatoes for wanting to apologize wordlessly for her earlier(well founded) suspicions, she couldn't help but be a little annoyed and oh god, anxious as all hell. Forget promises, forget vows, she had brought a homicidal _god _into Jane's apartment who could kill them all at any point in time that he got bored. She had put all of their lives in very real danger.

_Girl,_ he snorted, sounding far from comforting even as she tried to avoid hyperventilating over the potatoes. _Cease your panic. I will not harm the people in this apartment, I have said as much to you. _There was a brief pause. _...Give me a little credit._

At that, she didn't even bother trying to hide the doubt from etching itself across her face.

_Point taken_, he allowed.

Quietly huffing in amusement, Darcy went back to her task.

There were several instances where Jane had to intercede because Darcy's mind-and consequently her hands- would wander. It felt like the first time the stupid bastard had arrived in Bosslady's apartment, she was pingponging so much from panicked to cool, calm and collected Ice Bitch that she was actually getting a little dizzy. Well, that, and she had to actually physically refrain herself from jumping up and peeking around the corner every three seconds or so to make sure Cosplay wasn't a smear on the wall.

There were sounds of a sports game being blared, and since she could really see any male bonding going on(she couldn't really see Cosplay _or _Loki watching any sport at all, really) she figured it was just a really flimsy excuse to glare at eachother and possibly subtly flex muscles in a show of weird possessive alpha-maleness. She really hoped they didn't end up trying to kill eachother. Bosslady would probably make her clean up the mess.

Around when Darcy had finally peeled the last of the potatoes(potatoes, _potatoes_, she never wants to see another fucking spud again) and Bosslady has poured the quartered pieces into a pot of water, there's a knock on the door.

For some reason, the only thing either of them can do is freeze in their spots and blink repeatedly.

"Expecting someone?" Darcy mutters, trying to scrape up the insane amount of peels that did not make it into the sack she had set down on the counter when she begun peeling. Jane muttered something unintelligible while she moved toward the entrance.

"No need, Miss Foster. I'll get it." She heard Cosplays voice come from the living room.

"Oh... Um, thank you."

Quite content to sit and listen while Jane hesitantly made her way back to the stove, she tilted her head when a familiar voice broke the relative silence of the apartment.

"Couslon! You're exceptionally early." The eerily familiar voice took on a leering quality. "Wanting to keep the lovely ladies to yourself, eh? You naughty, naughty man."

"On the contrary, Mr. Stark, I arrived on time. You're the one who is exceptionally late."

"What? That hurts. That hurts me right here. I had lots of things to do, you know. Important things."

Silence.

"And who might this young man be?"

Darcy is pretty sure her heart stopped the moment Loki replied, "Darren. And you must be Mr. Tony Stark."

"Oh? Yes, I am. Are you a..." A purposeful pause. "..._Friend _of Coulsons?"

"Mr. Stark..."

Darcy was sure her eyebrows were touching her hairline. Jane, oven mitts sporting kittens in race cars on both hands while holding a pot of boiling water, turned to give her a confused look.

"_What in the world_?" Bosslady mouthed, standing there in her pretty little turtleneck and pencil skirt. Urgh. She hated it when Bosslady wore pretty things. It made her so much more aware of how she could only afford half-priced jeans at the thrift store and had to beg her cousin to give Darcy her old clothes right after she moved. The skirt was a very pretty white-rose color, while the turtleneck was the color of champagne. That was the receipts description, not hers; the bubbly was for getting hammered with a bit of dignity and grace, not for being used as an adjective. What the hell was _that _about?

Also, _why _did that voice sound so familiar?

_You're a little dim today, aren't you, lamb? Or is this a constant state of mind for you?_

'I _loathe _you with my entire _being_.'

_Stop it, you'll make me blush._

Studying Jane shift awkwardly from foot to foot, Darcy decided to take the initiative and see exactly what the hell was going on in her living room. Potato peeler in one hand and bits of mutilated potato all down the front of her jeans, Darcy poked her head around the corner and blinked. Ha! She was totally right; the game was just a ruse. From her vantage point, she could see Cosplay-wait, what had the guy called him? Coleslaw?-watching Loki like a hawk while the other guy(not that bad looking, from what she could tell, hot damn) kinda sprawled himself over Bossladys chair and texted.

Something niggled at the back of her mind, like a memory she couldn't quite remember. In possibly the most patronizing voice she had ever heard, the stupid Bastard the Green Giant said, _You can do it..._

It was at that moment that the new guy decided to look up, spotting her. He smirked. "Hey there, girlie."

Everything fell into place with an audible '_click!_'

"Holy shit!" Darcy blurted, pointing the potato peeler at him. "It's you!"

He grins cockily, and she's struck by just how boyish he looks. Then it turns apologetic and regretful and he's ducking his head like she just told him his favorite dog was dead and it was all his fault and he'd also be eating nothing but Brussels sprouts for the rest of the week.

"I, uh. I'm sorry about your..." He gestured to his entire face. "...Yeah."

Well.

That was pretty insulting.

"I don't-" Her confusion evaporated when she quickly realized what he meant. Oh. _Oh._ Geez, she'd put makeup on to fool everyone else, not herself.

_I will assume that it is a constant state of mind, then. _Loki purred.

Darcy should not have felt so ridiculously pleased at the choked laughter that came in reply to her mental image of Hannibal Lector tearing the face off a poor guard.

She can't tell if she was this fucked up before, or if it was entirely his fault.

Out loud, she said, "Uh, dude. It's no big deal. I mean, it's just a few cuts. S'not like I'm all scarred up for life and now have to look for job positions as a ghost for an opera house. I can barely sing in the shower, y'know? I don't think I can hit the kind of pitch necessary for a position like that."

Both Cosplay and Robo-dude were staring at her... But only Loki's speculative stare was starting to make her nervous.

"So, uh, who's up for drinks?" She asked cheerfully, totally ignoring how her voice had disregarded her earlier statement and reached an obnoxiously high pitch as she spun back into the kitchen. "Jane! Break out the tequila, girl."

The only thing funnier than Janes wide eyed look of embarrassed disbelief was Robo-dude's voice piping in with a, "I'll take a Cooler if you have it!"

Darcy had been certain nothing could top having breakfast with a god. Darcy was wrong.

Tony(who she soon learned was _Ironman_. Huh.) was fond of bugging Cosplay, whose name was actually Coulson, which she had found out after blurting out her little nickname for him after he accidentally stabbed himself in the hand when Tony leaned over to jostle him.

The silence was decidedly awkward, even if both Loki's were chuckling.

There was quite a bit of confusion concerning cutlery, as she had been banished from cooking after running with the butcher blade. Honestly, how was she suppose to know it wasn't suppose to be used for chopping up celery? Good lord, she wasn't a mind reader. And besides, she blamed a large part of that on Loki. _Both _of them, in fact, as she hadn't heard from the actual-Loki in awhile, and the stupid sexy voice of his had been fueling her paranoia.

He had laughed outright when she had stumbled into the living room, hand wrapped around the hilt of the blade and arm raised as if confronting a murderer, but there was something weird in his eyes that she couldn't push out of her mind. It wasn't murderous intent, because hell, she'd seen that before and knew how to-mostly-avoid it. It was something... Different, that she hadn't see before. Serious and intense and _focused_, all on her.

She wasn't sure she liked it.

Besides Tony constantly pestering Cosplay, to the point that she just _had _to ask if something was going on between the two and it was okay, they could tell her, she didn't judge. They stared at her with such horror, even Jane had a hard time not laughing outright.

The food was good, the company was... Well, it wasn't homicidal, and that was the important thing.

The longer the evening wore on, however, the edgier Loki became. Which made _her _edgy-coupling with the fact that through the entire evening, Cosplay nor Tony made any move to confront her about her presence during the attack on downtown.

In fact, everything went so nicely, Darcy was _terrified._

When the time came for everyone to leave, she stayed clear of the door and windows, half certain that Fury was going to burst through them at any minute and pimp-slap her into submission, confessing everything. She was almost out of the clear, too, had her arms full of dirty dishes when Cosplay stopped her on her way to the kitchen.

"Miss Lewis? May I have a word with you for a moment?"

Shit fuck damn.

_So close._

'You're not helping.'

Which reminded her...

Shoving the dishes into the arms of the God of Mischief standing beside her, wiping all amusement from his face in the blink of an eye, she muttered a syrup-sweet "Take care of those, will you?" before she positively _ran _towards Cosplay.

"Sure yes let's go," She beamed, rather unthinkingly grabbing his hand and dragging him out into the hall. She caught the figures of Jane and Tony heatedly discussing something over coffee in the living room as she turned before the door slid shut.

With a jolt, she realized that was Coplay's doing.

"Uh...?"

His smile is near nonexistent, but what's there is chilly and makes her shiver because he still hasn't let go of her hand. "You need to be debriefed, Miss Lewis."

"I-I don't...?"

_Shove him away_, Loki orders lowly, fury blatantly evident. _Hurt him. Force him to take his hand off of you._

But she can't, she's starting to panic a little now because that look is not the snooty asshat that she knows, this is Cosplay in full on Agent mode. And she has no idea what to do.

"Uh, look, I'm guessing that you're pretty peeved about my.. Um, dropping in-" She begins, hating herself for the unsure quiver in her voice. "-But it seriously wasn't what it looked like."

"What did it look like?" Cosplay smoothly interrupted, advancing on her.

"Um? I don't know?" She tugged unsuccessfully to free her hand, and Loki's chilling snarl echoed in her mind. "I guess like I was trying to interfere, but I swear, seriously, I just-"

"You just wanted to what, Miss Lewis?"

"Help!" She squeaks, tugging harder on her captured hand-

-That was no longer captured and holy shit, Loki looked _furious_.

Or maybe it was just Darcy, because he was smiling cold enough to make Coplay's frozen little smile seem like a sauna in comparison and his eyes were lit up and holy shit blood was going to be _shed_.

_Yes,_ he hissed in her mind, viciously pleased.

But... No.

"Um, _Darren_, I think Cos-Coulson was just leaving. Cause... Yeah." Oh jeez, Tony and Jane had come to the door now, staring out curiously to the scene laid before them. "Yeah. Night time. Hey! I know! I'll drive you home." Desperate for any sort of veil of normality, Darcy threw a saucy wink at Jane and clamped her talons onto his arm.

His vibrating arm.

Holy shit, was he _trembling_?

As soon as she had a hold of him, all movement ceased.

Without saying a word, terrifyingly silent, ignoring that _she _was the one hanging onto _him_, Loki dragged her away.


	9. Chapter 9

_Hey everyone! Guess what? Awwh yeah, that's right, I got a beta! Yay! This chapter was beta'd by the awesome Saelryth-Windstalker, who(in my absolutely correct opinion) did a fantastic job. Thanks again, Sael!_

_On another note, I SAW AVENGERS. OH YEAH BABY. Mmm. So much Loki. And holy crap, did ya'll see that Banner? For a guy who periodically goes nuts and demolishes everything within reach, he's lookin' good. I don't want to give to much away for those who haven't seen it yet, so I'll end this AN here and let you all get on with the story._

_..._

_SO MUCH LOKI._

* * *

><p>Darcy did not want to be the one to snap the fuming god from his temper tantrum, but if he kept jerking her along like this her arms were going to pop from their sockets.<p>

And while he might get a good laugh out of that, she was definitely not.

"Um," her voice was so small, she had a hard time hearing it herself. "Um, Loki, I-"

He whipped around to face her so fast, she thinks she got whiplash just by watching.

"You humans," he hisses, so low and intense that she flinches back, finally letting go. "You_ humans_. No wonder my idiotic brother is so at home with you." Dark eyes studied her face furiously, flitting back and forth over features Darcy is sure are frozen. "You did not shake the Agent off. In fact, you did nothing." His breath hisses out as he emphasizes, "Pathetic."

Wide eyed, she could only stare.

"What is more, you didn't say anything. You did not call out. You stood there and accepted it."

His words only seemed to anger him further. "You _accepted_ it."

Darcy realizes that she has absolutely no way of escape when his hand whips out, lightning fast, and squeezes her bicep painfully. She winces, and his face twists into a snarl. "You are_ pathetic_!"

For some reason, absolute rage fills her in that moment; her vision tunnels, and the only thing she can see if his furious face scowling down at her. "Fuck you! What right do you have to judge me, oh great God of Bullshit?"

For one heart stopping moment, he just stares at her. And then his hand twists so sharply, she cries out.

Face hardening into something unreadable, he keeps twisting. The pain is quick and intense, quickly climbing to white hot burning when he just keeps rotating his wrist with her arm caught. Darcy tries to follow the angle, tries to ease the pressure even just a little, Christ, it hurts so bad, but he just won't stop.

When she falls to one knee, body angled uncomfortably that only adds to the fire burning up and down her arm;he stops but doesn't move. He just stares down his nose at her, watching, face having relaxed into emotionless sometime when hers was twisting in agony.

She tries to flex her fingers, but can't feel them.

He twitches, or she does, but one of them moves and it breaks the tension that's settled over them. Darcy gasps when he drops her arm, cradles it to her body and refuses to let the tears of pain pricking at the back of her eyes fall. She doesn't look up at him because she can still feel his gaze heavy and unblinking on her, and absurdly thinks that if their eyes were to meet now, she'd shatter.

It takes a few silent moments, but it finally occurs to her that she is kneeling at his feet.

And that will not fucking do.

She stands up swiftly, stumbles a little because her knee is aching and her head is a little dizzy, her arm is throbbing with the renewal of blood flow and she can already make out the line of his hand on her arm in the form of a deep, angry bruise.

Surprisingly, his voice in her head is silent.

Her throat works, and she knows she won't be able to hold back the tears for long. She hates herself for it, but damn it, doesn't she deserve to be weak for a little while?

She's confused, she's hurt, and God does she just want to go home and boil herself in the shower for an hour before climbing into bed to sleep for the next week or so.

Not yet steady, Darcy grits her teeth and takes a wobbling step around him. He doesn't stop her, and in fact doesn't move at all. She sways a little but doesn't stop, keeps moving even when her vision starts to blur a little.

She hits the street corner, peeks behind her just before she rounds it and lets out the breath she's been holding in a great whoosh of air when she finds him gone.

* * *

><p>Something annoying was trying to rupture her eardrums. Something loud, viciously angsty and repetitive and ANNOYING and Jesus, it just would not shut. Up.<p>

She was dead tired to her bones, eyes gritty and head pounding; her arm ached so fiercely she was forced to fumble with the nightstand next to her cheap little bed and pull out the extra strength asprin she kept in there for hangovers. She finds it and blindly pops three into her mouth and lets the uncapped container roll down her pillow onto the bed, burying her face into the covers and hoping death would just take her already.

That was how Darcy started her day, and it only went downhill from there.

Turns out, the annoying sound was actually Bosslady calling her cell repeatedly to try to wake her up so she could come into work. With a few not so polite, half-grumbled suggestions that Jane(thankfully?) doesn't understand or politely ignores, she gets out of bed and absent-mindedly puts off her horrible mood to that time of the month rapidly approaching and starts getting dressed.

When she gets to work, she's starting to feel a little better. Her headache is gone, and the pain in her arm has gone to a dull throb. Darcy is a little reluctant at first, but eventually she caves and puts on that damned brown sweater. It put her a little on edge(Was it a bad omen of sorts? Should she have burned everything from that night in some weird purifying fire? Poured a little holy water on it for good luck?), but she puts it off to her being paranoid. Besides, it was the only thing light enough that she owned that would cover up the bruise and not put her in the risk of getting heat stroke.

Eric is over at the chalkboard, doing equations that kind of looked like spilt ice cream cones and what she thinks is called pi but definitely looks nothing like the food while muttering in a sort of creepy way to himself. Bosslady is no where to be found.

"Hey," she said, doing a jerky definitely not suspicious wave when Eric glances over his shoulder at her. "Y'know where-?"

"Jane is out." He cuts her off, sounding a bit annoyed at the interruption. Well then. Darcy bites back a snarky reply and instead mutters a petulant "_Fine_" and heads for the coffeemaker.

That's how Bosslady found her when she came in an hour and a half later; guzzling coffee like a fiend, scrolling through her iPod like a serial killer looking for his next victim, and chewing on the cord of her ear buds.

"Darcy," Bosslady began, approaching her warily. "What is that?"

"My eighth cup of coffee." She replied scornfully, stabbing the off button hard enough for the plastic to whine at the abuse.

"I see. Uh, I'm sorry for annoying you earlier by calling so much..." So she had noticed. "...But I was just sort of worried. You and Whats-his-name ran off so fast last night. And what was that between you and Agent Coulson?"

_So that's his name._ Loki's voice murmured, making an unwelcome reappearance. The weight that she didn't noticed had settled on her chest lifted. She was definitely not relieved._ I had gotten used to you referring to him as Cosplay. Pity._

Darcy took a deep breath. "It's okay. Uh, Darren, uh, had to get home. Emergency, you know, so I offered him a ride with Eric's Mustang."

"But it was still there when I left this morning..."

"And then we decided walking would be better, since it wasn't that far away."

_You really are a poor liar._

'I don't remember anyone asking your opinion.' Darcy's reply was perhaps a tad too sharp, giving her a brief moment of clarity in which she realized that the God of Mischief's voice hadn't been so much condescending as teasing. 'I... Sorry. Sorry.'

She didn't get a reply.

"Oh." Jane appeared sympathetic. "I'm sorry. I hope everything is okay now. But, uh, what happened with you and Agent Coulson?"

"...Nothing. I just annoyed him." She forced herself to laugh. "Y'know, same old same old."

Bosslady cracked a smile in reply, but was quickly distracted with the blackboard that Eric was still pouring over, leaving Darcy to drown herself in caffeine and her brooding thoughts.

Day starting off shitty, Darcy soon realized that that was how the rest of it was going to be; this idea being reinforced when Bosslady assigned her to start cleaning some of the equipment. From there, all the shitty pieces started falling together neatly while her mood steadily grew darker and darker.

Sometimes, only once or twice really did she feel like she was getting her feet back under her, finally managing to shrug off the cloud that had been following her only to be knocked back on her ass when Jane or Eric made a seemingly innocent comment but that would have her temper coming back full force. The only thing that would come out of her mouth was downright mean comments and insults, directed at one or more commonly both of them at any given time, no matter what they were doing.

It was nearing noon when Darcy made another sneering comment, this time on Jane's poor choice of takeout for lunch. Everyone at the little folding table was tense and on edge, chewing their food carefully, avoiding all eye contact and not even bothering to make small talk.

"Great choice, Jane." She had drawled, pushing the food-Chinese, spicy orange chicken with a huge side of pork fried rice-around in its carton. "Where'd you pick this up? Shitty Express? This is probably the cat I had that ran away when I was ten, biding its time to come back to me in some below standard freezer all this time."

"Jesus, Darcy!" Jane finally exploded, slamming her hands down on the table. The food and drinks rattled with the force of it, and Eric paused in his chewing, keen eyes darting between both of them. Face red, obviously at the end of her rope, the woman demanded, "What is your problem today?"

Head whipping up and temper snapping at its restraints, helpless to stop it, Darcy sneered. "Why is it my problem, huh Jane? Maybe I'm not the one with the fucking problem."

"And what is that supposed to mean?"

"It means," she went on, ignoring how Jane had now risen from her chair with a dangerous look on her face, instead choosing to mimic her move and push herself up while shoving her chair back. It fell with a deafening clatter on the concrete floor. "That maybe if you went out and get_ laid_ instead of sitting here pining for a guy you knew less than a week, you wouldn't go around like you have this gigantic stick up your-"

The slap rang out, Darcy's head snapping to the side while Jane slowly lowered her hand. Eyes wide, she raised a lightly trembling hand to her cheek.

"You hit me." She gaped, anger forgotten. Jane was starting to shake herself and looked horrified.

"...Okay," Eric cut in, stepping carefully between them and raising his hands in a placating manner. "I think we just... Darcy, why don't you take the day off? I'll call if we need you."

_He means leave,_ Loki's voice clarified, speaking up calmly for the first time in hours.

'But I... He-'

_He is trying to rectify the problem. You are the problem._

With a jolt, she realized he was right. She _had _been a bitch, hadn't she? Ganging up on their cases, contributing nothing but snarky remarks, even going so far as to seek them out when they had tried to give her room to breathe and get over her piss poor attitude.

"I..." Her voice was still weak with disbelief. "...I'm sorry."

"Darcy," Erics voice is firm. "Just go."

"...Okay."

So she did.

That didn't mean she had to like it.

_Is it not your 'piss poor attitude' that got you into this mess in the first place?_ Loki piped up once she was clear of the building, kicking up dirt with her sneakers and sending dirty looks to stray signs and sad looking plant life.

'Shut up. Just shut up,' she shot back, mood thunderous. 'This is all your fault somehow, god damn it, I just know it.'

_Oh yes, blame the villain. How original._

Darcy snarled wordlessly.

This was ridiculous. Wasn't it? Yes, it was. Okay, she had been a huge bitch all day. But was that reason enough to hit her? Hadn't she been getting enough fucking abuse lately as it was?

A thought sparked in her mind. Latching onto it, expression growing murderous, Darcy realized what she needed to do.

But how to go about getting it done?

_Perhaps you truly are insane,_ Loki's voice noted once he caught onto her thoughts.

A small boy in his mother_'_s arms who was walking by noticed her smile and started bawling.

Getting someone to do something that they don't want to do can be as easy as falling asleep when you're tired, or as hard as falling asleep when you're tired when you're an_ insomniac_. It all depends on the right kind of person... And the right kind of persuasion for that person.

For instance, her mother needs to be lulled into the thought that it was her idea to do something all along. If Jane gets a moment to think, she'll analyze and pick apart the entire situation until she finds what she wants, so she needs to be quickly steam rolled before any solid thought process gets a chance to form itself. Some people needed blackmail, threats, deals, while others needed subtle persuasion and gentle pushes.

And Darcy? Well, wave a 64oz slushie under her nose and she'd be your own prison snitch. And that meant something; Darcy was secretly hugely terrified of becoming a prison snitch. Or anything to do with prison at all, actually.

And while Loki might technically count as a person, she's pretty sure that the whole god thing boosts that status to heights she couldn't hope to really comprehend. She can't tell if it's because he knows that that his presence in her mind was being impudent and wouldn't help her out, or if it was because he was simply a jackass, disembodied voice or not.

'Listen,' she tried again for what felt like the hundredth time, not even caring about the pretense of normality anymore as she physically spread her hands in a peaceful gesture.

She was shopping in a little convenient store half a block down from her rundown apartment, one arm sprouting a plastic shopping basket that had seen better times and less stains. 'This doesn't make sense, does it? We shouldn't be fighting. You're in my head. It's not like we can just get rid of the other... We should try to help each other out.'

_Oh? I fail to see how your presence could benefit any situation I might find myself in, lamb._

He kinda had a point there.

She mumbled something that vaguely went along the lines of '_stupid fucking voices_' and had the woman beside her scoot a good few feet away.

_You're so popular today, _he pointed out nastily. Darcy grimaced in agreement.

He's silent when she's finally out and on her way home, hands full of ramen and potato chips. She'd have definitely gone on with her mental persuasion, but she had a feeling that his silence wasn't so much him ignoring her as him _thinking_.

It's when she's crossing the parking lot of the convenient store that he speaks up again.

_You're in a good mood, I see._ He says, voice oddly subdued. _Feeling better?_

Darcy paused, a feeling of unease settling over her.

'I must be,' she allowed hesitantly. 'Maybe I just needed to get away from people for awhile.'

He hummed.

_Press the bruise on your arm, _he said after a long, silent moment had passed.

'_What_? Why in the hell would I do that?' Immediately suspicious, Darcy narrowed her eyes. 'What exactly are you trying to pull-'

_Darcy._

She froze.

Hesitantly, in the middle of a 7/11 parking lot, she raised her hand and with the plastic sack around that wrist, gently pressed two fingers over the bruise on her opposite arm.

Maybe the asprin she had taken earlier was finally wearing off, or maybe the bruise was more sensitive than she originally thought, because the moment she brushed her fingers against her bicep, her entire forearm gave a noticable twinge.

Darcy winced, but Loki interrupted before she could inquire into the reason behind her actions.

_Again._

Biting her lip, she did.

_Again._

The twinge was now a dull ache.

_Again._

Her entire arm throbbed.

_Once more. Bear with me; I feel as you do._

Darcy obeyed.

When she blinked an instant later, she wasn't in New Mexico. The beat-up laundromat across the street she had been facing towards was no longer there; instead, what greeted her was distant city lights. The noonday sun had disappeared, leaving her instead bathed in a sickly yellow streetlight and the faint glow of tiny distant stars and a sliver of moon reflected in the water below.

"Lovely, isn't it?" A voice asked from behind her. She whirled.

"Loki," she breathed.

_You've gotten what you've asked for, _his voice told her quietly. _Be sure it's what you want, lamb._

He didn't reply, just stood there and watched her.

She swallowed hard.

_Courage,_ his voice urged.

"How?" Loki asked quietly.

"I don't... How what?" Her eyebrows furrowed. "_You're _the one who brought me here."

"Don't play." His tone was teasing, featherlight and feeling like a razor on her skin. "I don't follow rules, little mortal. Tell me how you know."

"Know _what_?"

For a moment, she could swear that she saw his composure slip; his eyes lit furiously, mouth thinning into a hard line.

When she blinked, his honey-dipped smile had returned. Her attention lowered to his hands, where one was rolling up the sleeve to his right arm. Incredulous, she watched as the twin to the bruise on her own arm was revealed. Completely dumbstruck, she didn't make a sound when three fingers settled over the outline of the palm... And pressed down viciously.

Involuntarily, she cried out as sharp pain shot up her arm and settled into her shoulder and fingertips.

"That." He murmured.

And damned if Darcy didn't suddenly realize what was going on.

"We share pain." She whispered, lips barely moving.

His head tilted. His smile fell. "You didn't know."

Holy shit. Holy _shit._ How did- wait, wait, no. _Wait._

"...But you did." Her anger is beginning to bleed through her dumbstruck awe. "_You knew_."

His voice in her mind distracts her fury. _I had a vague idea. _A strange flutter brushed against the confines of her mind, in what she thinks might have been a shrug. _Although I imagine he did know, yes._

"If I did?" The true Loki flippantly asks.

"If you- you unbelievable asswipe! You didn't think that _maybe _I deserved to know about this?" Her groceries slid unnoticed and forgotton from her wrists to the concrete before she slowly began to advance on him. "That maybe, just maybe, I had a right to know about the shit happening to _my _body?"

He sneered. "And what would you have done if I had told you, hmm? Run off to your oh-so dear Jane Foster so she could whisk you away to headquarters to try to dispel my voice from your head? Are you so naive to believe that they would have helped you, no questions asked? Out of the _goodness of their hearts_?"

"I don't know!" She burst out, hands flying up in the air helplessly. "But it would have been my decision to make, now wouldn't it've been?"

"Pitiful, lowly wretched girl. You are in over your head. You have no idea what is at stake."

He tensed when, instead of turning away from her completely, Darcy stopped his progress with a hand on his arm.

Very slowly, he turned to face her.

"Then tell me." She demanded quietly.


	10. Chapter 10

_So yeah I'm a terrible person. Sorry for the lack of updates, ladies and gentlemen! I blame the Scienceboyfriends. Hopefully I will be getting this derailed train back on the tracks. For now, enjoy._

* * *

><p>Darcy has found that walking down a deserted bridge in the middle of the night with a God of Mischief is a lot like being stranded in an elevator with a stranger. It's awkward, it's silent, and neither of you are quite sure what to say.<p>

Despite situations that testified otherwise, Darcy does know when to keep her mouth shut. She just has a tendency to ignore her common sense and run it anyway.

Now, however, she instinctively knew that any comment on her part without his first prompting one was a recipe for disaster.

So she was going to have to wait him out. Even if it felt like she was standing at the edge of a huge leap of understanding regarding the god walking just a bit ahead of her... As if one move could send her a step forward, or two steps back. Caution was not only wanted in this instant, but absolutely needed.

Darcy had never been very good at heeding caution.

All the ways that the situation could go wrong began to fly through her mind in a jumble. What if she screwed it up somehow, as she almost certainly would? She could barely get the microwave to pop her damn popcorn, how was she to-

Loki spoke up suddenly, jolting her from her thoughts, her eyes immediately locking onto his. "Nervous?" He asked casually.

"Huh?"

"You are biting your fingernails," he clarified. Darcy gave a strained laugh when she found he was right. "Are you nervous then, little mortal?"

"Just thinking." She replies vaguely.

"Oh?" Casually, he turned his attention out towards the water. "Not good things, I imagine."

Realizing she was on some thin ice, Darcy carefully replied, "In a way. Nothing to do with you, though." His amused dubious look had her scrambling to elaborate. "I mean, sure, they're centered around you, but you're not exactly the main focus."

"How curious." He said, a corner of his mouth tilting up into a smile that didn't look happy. "I don't believe you're lying."

She blinked. "Why would I lie?"

He was in her face before she realized he had moved, forcing her backwards with every step he took for every emphasis. "Why_ wouldn't_ you lie? Pardon; why wouldn't you _try_ to lie? Why are you not lashing out? Demanding I return you? Crying? Cursing? Anything. You are not doing anything." The railing jabbed hard against her lower back, his arms reaching out to grip the cables behind her and consequently caging her in. "You are..." It looked as if he was struggling. "Too calm."

His face was close, pressing in so his breath, just the barest bit irregular, washed across her jaw. She desperately wanted to look anywhere but his eyes, dark and intense and staring unblinkingly into hers, but to do that would, she knew, give him exactly what he wanted.

"I don't..." She struggled to find the right words, and finally just settled on the only ones she could think of. "I dunno. I mean, I kinda asked for it, right? And I... I don't know." Her voice dropped. "I don't know."

Unable to take his scrutinizing stare any more, Darcy dropped her eyes and took a huge breath in through her nose.

Long silent moments passed where neither of them spoke or moved. The only sound was their quiet breathing and the gentle lapping of the water below them.

"You are a strange one, little mortal." He finally said, minute amusement leaking into his voice.

Against her will, a huge breath of air whooshed out of her lungs. When she peeked up at him to see if he had noticed, it looked as if his amusement had only deepened. So he had. Damn. "Yeah, well," she grumbled good-naturedly. "It's not like you're one to talk there, Mr. Send-a-Giant-Golem-to-kick-your-Brothers-Ass."

"Touche."

His arms, after a brief moment of hesitance, lowered.

Darcy shivered when at that moment the wind picked up, biting through her pitiful sweater and sending chills down her spine. For an instance, her teeth chattered.

"I," Loki murmured, tilting his head so he could look down his nose at her, something strange and _knowing _going on behind his eyes. "Believe I am in the mood for waffles."

She blinked, and a moment later looked up at him, but he had already averted his gaze and refused to look at her as he took her injured arm carefully. "Don't you?"

Whatever she planned to say was lost in a violent roll of nausea as her world tilted and turned, as if she had just gotten off those godforsaken teacup rides at an amusement park. Her eyes were focused, and in a distant part of her mind she absently realized that they were back in her apartment.

She pressed a hand to her mouth and doubled over.

"Ah, right. I apologize." His voice was anything but apologetic. "It must have slipped my mind you Midgardians are not accustomed to teleporting."

"Mike TV didn't make it look so bad," she groaned, fighting back the urge to heave.

"Mike-Who?" Loki asked curiously. She waved a dismissive hand before launching herself toward the dingy little bathroom.

"Are all mortals as dramatic as you?" He called after her. She was pleased when she replied in the form of her vomiting.

When her stomach has successfully emptied itself into the toilet, she stumbles up blindly to wash her mouth out with the tap before gargling with her cinnamon mouthwash... Twice.

She already knew what she looked like compared to him-hell, to Jane-she isn't about to give anyone ammo by coming out smelling like bile.

Opening the door and stepping out, Darcy is a little surprised to find her apartment empty.

What she feels settle heavily in the pit of her stomach is definitely anger and not disappointment, or worse, hurt. Definitely. Because that would be stupid and weird and made no sense whatsoever.

Right.

The moment she steps into her adjoined kitchen she is staring directly into something green that looks vaguely wool-like in texture.

"Hello." Loki smirked.

"You're-" She started, "You're... Uh, here."

His eyebrow raised. "Yes? Would you rather I enter some establishment instead to acquire my waffles? Preferably with a fair amount of civilians...?"

"No!" She burst out loudly. Catching his humor, she huffed. "No, this is fine."

"Why, I had no idea you valued my company that much. I'll remember that for future endeavors."

"Feel free not to." She muttered. A thought struck her. "Uh, I'm not exactly stocked for a Waffle Night here. I don't have milk, batter, oil..."

Even as she named off the ingredients, he was pulling them out of the paper bag on the counter that she was just now noticing.

_Vigilance is not your strong suit, I assume?_

Ignoring that, she narrowed her eyes on him. "Dude, are you Mary Fucking Poppins? What else do you have in there?"

He was smirking when he showed her the contents. There definitely was not enough room for all of the items he held in there-or there shouldn't have been. It was big, but not that big. Strawberries, blueberries, melon, sugar, powdered and granulated. About three bottles of syrup respectively, bananas, chocolate chips and syrup, whipped cream...

Something caught her eye.

"What the hell is that?" She pointed to a vague oval shaped plant with various leaves peeling from it. The leaves were green, connected to the plant that was a vague reddish pink.

Loki's lips pursed.

"The sign declared it some sort of fruit from a dragon. Perhaps offspring?" He shrugged lightly. "Your dragons are odd here."

"Uh, no, we don't have dragons. I've heard of that fruit though." She stared hard at the offending item. "...S'fuckin' weird looking."

One look at his face confirmed that was most likely the reason he had bought it in the first place. Had he bought it? Maybe he'd stolen it. Or talked some unsuspecting store employee into giving him everything. Huh. This needed looking into.

"Two questions." She held up her index and middle finger for emphasis. "How did you buy all of this, and how the hell did you manage to fit it all into that bag?"

His eyes flashed with humor. "It's a secret." He whispered, effectively leaving her in a frozen state of mindfuck when he raised his finger to his lips and _winked_ at her.

"You're creepy." She stated bluntly, shivering when he only winked again. Because she was totally weirded out and not for any other reason. Huffing out a breath, she nabbed the batter from him and went to go find her waffle maker.

If someone had told her that she would be a willing participant in a Waffle Night with the guy who had tried to kill them all, Darcy would have politely asked them how comfy hug-yourself jackets are.

However- there she is, peeling waffles from her waffle iron and filling up plate after plate with stacks of waffles.

Loki is at the other end of the counter, surrounded by cartons and containers of fruit. The smaller fruit is off to the side, to make room for the chopping block so the god could slice the rest of the larger fruit.

Except all he was doing was popping blueberries into his mouth while he watched her do all the work.

"What a peculiar contraption." He mused out loud. Darcy wonders if that condescending tone is the only one he knows how to use.

"Are you just going to sit there and let me do all the work?" She demands, then takes the knife she had set out for him to use and puts it someplace high because he's starting to look at it funny.

"You are the woman here, are you not?" His eyebrow is raised, voice deceptively casual. "I believe preparing the food falls on you."

Slowly, Darcy turned and stared.

His answering smile is angelic.

"I advise you to never give me back my taser," she says carefully. "Otherwise I'm liable to shock you until you sob for mercy and soil yourself."

"Duly noted. I must say, you have quite the little vindictive streak, don't you? Are all Midgardian women as ruthless as you or is this innate need of yours to witness others you loathe in pain unique to only you?"

"You're not really one to talk," she pointed out. "And besides, I don't hate you."

"Oh?" When she glances over her shoulder at him, she finds his smile has frosted and his eyes half lidded and distrustful. "Do tell."

Crap. How to explain this? "Um, I guess it's because I don't think you're entirely an asshole? I mean, don't get me wrong, The Biggest Douchebag of the Universe Award clearly goes to you, but... It's not like it's the only aspect of you? You have, uh... Moments, I guess."

"Moments," he repeated slowly, both eyebrows high.

"Well, yeah. I mean, you healed me that one time."

"Have you conveniently forgotten, little mortal, that we share pain?"

"No... But you didn't have to heal me. If we share pain, we must heal together, right?" Tongue between her teeth in concentration, she tried to think and pour batter. "So you could have healed yourself and left me alone, yeah? I would've been healed anyway, and you wouldn't have had to touch me at all. I have no idea what it means-I'm majoring in political science, not psychology-but I figure it must mean something. You don't strike me as the kinda person who just does something for the hell of it. Everything's gotta have a rhyme or reason."

Darcy pauses on her way to get a new plate to put with the three full ones when she sees Loki just standing there, leaning frozen against the counter with his chin in his palm and that oh so familiar intense stare on her.

After a few silent moments in which his eyes never leave hers, he finally breaks the spell by looking away and humming noncommittally.

"You do remember I am the villain, don't you, Darcy Lewis?"

She finds herself in the rather awkward position of being breathless when he says her name.

"Just because you do bad things doesn't mean you're a bad person," she whispers.

He laughs harshly. "What are actions for if not to measure ones worth?"

She forces herself to move, to get the new plate and start on the last batch. She sighs. "Doing something, thinking something and feeling something are rarely synchronized. You could do something, feel and think something entirely different from each other. I believe you need all three to be taken into account before you judge a persons character."

Face darkening, Loki opened his mouth to no doubt argue the point when Darcy cut him off. She wanted answers tonight, not an argument in which either Darcy winds up dead or Loki disappears to sulk. Possibly both.

"But, look, let's agree to disagree, okay?" In an effort to change the subject, she mused out loud before he could get a word in edgewise, "Kinda wonderin' here though. If we share pain, what else do we share?"

He allowed her to very poorly attempt to distract him, but not without sending her a look. "Would you like to find out?" He purrs. Literally purrs.

And, whoa, okay, that sent shivers right down to her toes. 'If that whole 'mischief' thing hadn't worked out for him,' Darcy internally thinks, 'he could've been the God of Sexy Voices.'

"No?" She replies hesitantly, a bit dazed, a little irked that it comes out as a question. He only smirks in reply, and they settle into silence; not uncomfortable, not easy going, just... There.

_Inform myself of your earlier tantrum,_ Loki's voice spoke suddenly, startling her so bad she poured half the batter for the last waffle on the counter.

"Fuck!"

'Jesus! Where the fuck have you been?' She thought furiously. 'And why are you speaking up now?"

_Tell me!_

"I... Uh, I guess I have something to tell you?" Darcy fumbled. Immediately, he looked guarded.

"You guess?" He prodded. She blew out a breath.

"Well, yeah. Doesn't matter if you're in my brain or not, you're a pushy fucking guy."

He barked out a laugh, waving his arm as cue for her to continue. She ignored that.

"Okay, well, I have no idea why it's any concern of yours-I'm probably about to start my oh so lovely once a month womanly thing-but you in here," she gestured with her eyes to her forehead. "Said I should tell you that today, I was the Bitchinator. Seriously, I was biting heads off left and right. I think I made a little kid cry. Oh! And-you'll love this- Jane ended up smacking me."

He didn't look like he loved it. In fact, he didn't even look amused anymore. His expression was drawn and guarded; it put Darcy on edge.

"...It means something, doesn't it?" She asked quietly.

His jaw clenched.

"Fetch me a plate of waffles," he said instead.

She wants to scream at his stubborn attitude, but instead hands him the stupid plate.

_Patience._

'I'm trying.' She growls back. And she really is. Darcy is not a person with a great abundance of patience- if she wants something, it has to be done right then. It's a virtue she doesn't have, and she's okay with that, really. But this, him, what's happening between them both is something serious. Voices, pain-and now, maybe even something else. It all needed to be addressed, damn it. They'll get no where if they're so at odds with each other, keeping secrets and butting heads. It doesn't matter if he's the guy with huge ass brother issues who tried to kill them all, or that she's just a little college student that has no way of paying back her student loans. Outside variables don't count. They might add to the whole, but with this between them, it's just the two of them. Darcy and Loki.

And if they want to return to how they were, they needed to work together and learn how to trust each other.

Jesus, they're so screwed.

_Couldn't have said it better myself,_ he chuckles humorlessly.

'I liked you better when you weren't talking.'

_No you didn't._

She doesn't say anything to that. Instead she picks up her own plate of waffles, putting a few onto another plate so she has a dignified amount, and then sets to work with toppings. They're both silent, listening instead to the sounds they're making as they pile their plates high with fruits and sugar.

It's starting to make her antsy as all hell.

'Patience, patience, remember patience.' She reminds herself. Inside her mind, he sighs knowingly.

No. She could do this. Right? Hell yeah she could.

...

...Fuck it.

Opening her mouth to no doubt send the situation careening down into a raging vortex of loud voices and destruction, Darcy was left standing there catching flies when he finally spoke up.

"To answer your question," he begins slowly, not looking up from his plate of waffles and small lake of syrup. "...Yes."

...That was surprisingly easy.

Too easy?

Suspiciously, Darcy watched him from the corner of her eye while she stabbed at strawberry. "Yes...?" She repeated, purposefully trailing off.

He gave her a dry look, even as he spooned up nothing but pure syrup and maybe a blueberry to his mouth. "Yes."

She blew out a breath. "Fair enough. Okay, so... What does it mean?"

"I do not know." He said immediately, eyes raising for the first time from his plate to stare directly into hers. She didn't believe him for a second.

"Right," she says bluntly. "And I'm a monkeys fuckin' uncle."

He blinked languidly. "...I do not understand what you've just said," he admitted reluctantly.

"It means you're a lying sack of shit and I don't believe you as far as I could throw you."

He contemplated this. "Wise," he decided.

"I know. Are you going to tell me the truth now, or will I have to give you a new facial piercing? Because I had a roommate once who tried to do that with one of these," she waved her fork. "And let me tell you, that's not the best of ideas even when you're sober."

The god huffed in what might have been amusement. "You're a strange one. It is almost enough to distract from your unfortunate humanity."

Darcy wasn't sure if she should be flattered or insulted. She went equal parts of both just to be safe.

_What are you going to do?_ He asked in her mind, because honestly, she had no fucking idea. Here they were, eating an obnoxious amount of waffles in her piece of shit kitchen, under, Darcy suddenly realized, the pretense of a normal atmosphere. There was nothing normal about this, and she had been stupid to let it lull her into a false sense of security.

'Oh,' she thought. 'He was good.' She hadn't even been suspicious.

God, Darcy reminded herself. God of Mischief. Fond of attempted homicide. Super tall.

She would bet good money she didn't have that he believed everything was under his control-even her little pain episode, even if that had startled the shit out of him. This was probably a business trip for him, under the guise of making good with the human; as impersonal as if he were making business arrangements.

So maybe it was time to surprise the God of Mischief. She'd done it once, right? Albeit unintentionally. She could totally do it again.

_Crazy little lamb. You will-_

'I know.'

Here goes.

"When I was thirteen," Darcy began, and he didn't even pause in the ministrations to his waffles. "My mother died."

"How sad." He muttered absently, reaching over the table to grab the powdered sugar.

"My dad did the best he could to raise me, even when I skipped the whole denial stage and went straight to anger; I did everything I could to make his life a living hell. I succeeded." Undeterred, she went on firmly, battling back memories that make her throat constrict just a bit even now. "I got the reputation as the loosest, sluttiest, do-anything-for-whatever girl in town." And then she stopped, because honestly, she did the same thing to Jane when they met and it started advancing towards actual friendship instead of just a boss/employee relationship. She did the same thing to her first boyfriend in college, too.

So Darcy had her a bit of an entrance exam to get into her... Affections, Circle of Trust, whatever. She didn't want to think about the implications of putting Loki through it, of all people... Because this was just to throw him off course. Get him off his game; because while she thinks they need to actually learn to trust each other, this was...

Okay, this was something else entirely.

At some point she turned her head away to stare at her plate, keeping him in her peripheral vision, and was sure that if she hadn't she would've missed how his mouth tightened a little around the corners and his eyes flickered up briefly.

She wanted to get up and dance and maybe fist pump a little but she could totally tell he was still watching her. She would bet her stash of secret tequila that she had his full attention.

"I wasn't, though. Have you ever seen that movie Easy A? It was kind of like that, except the other way around." Darcy twirls her fork and frowns thoughtfully. "Actually, have you seen that movie? Cause if you've seen that and not Star Wars, the original one because really fuck those new sequels, that needs to be rectified."

_Focus._

'Right, right.'

"But, uh. Yeah. I wasn't. Sort of a... Bad reputation, no one will want to mess with me, cry for help, blah blah blah, y'know? Like that."

He twitched.

"Still did though. Either the wrong people or for the wrong reasons, but it was always wrong. And eventually... I got tired of it. It was the same thing, day after day. The same motions, the same feelings; I just got tired of that endless loop." Lips pursed, Darcy tried to think of a better way to explain it. The continuous, constant circle she'd been running in, day after day. Nothing changing-not her life, not her choices, not the shitty way she felt, worthless and ashamed and so, so hurt. After a few silent moments, she gave up. She just honestly didn't know or have the right words to express the kind of void she'd been in at the time. And, if she was being entirely honest with herself, she wanted to get this over as quickly as possible.

Too many memories. Too many feelings that settle like lead in her stomach, remembered shame and guilt that still burns a hole through her chest.

"...I just got tired."

He was watching her outright now, head tilted so his gaze was only interrupted by his lashes as he looked under them straight into her. His waffles are-well, not forgotten, but put on the back burner so to speak as he studies her with eyes that seem to see everything.

He blinks first, then slowly nods. Nods again, firmer this time, and Darcy thinks that's the best she's going to get.

Whatever, she'll take it.

Somehow, eventually, she honestly has no idea how, they wind up on her couch watching reruns of What Not To Wear and eating leftover fruit whenever it feels like room has been made in her cramped and overly-filled stomach. Or, y'know, she's watching reruns of What Not To Wear and eating leftover fruit while Loki is perusing through her admittedly not that extensive book-collection he had gathered and made a miniature tower out of right next to his side of her shitty loveseat.

It's a testament to just how tired and rung out Darcy is when it occurs to her that she's sitting on a loveseat with Loki.

A loveseat. With Loki.

_Silly lamb,_ his voice murmurs softly._ Sleep, now. I will not harm you._

And she'll probably beat herself up in the morning because of it(if she lived through the night), but right then, she was too tired to honestly care. Life was fucking weird and miraculous and pretty crazy, so who knew? Maybe she would actually wake up in the morning, none the worse for wear... For now though, Darcy was tired; eyelids drooping, head falling forward before being jerked back up as tendrils of sleep curled themselves over her and had everything going fuzzy at the edges. So she blamed the sleepiness, and the delicious heavy feeling of being completely full, when her head dropped and she let her body fall forward into the lap of the ridiculously warm god of mischief. Her last thought was, 'Oh yeah. This can only bring good things.'


	11. Chapter 11

_I apologize for any mistakes; it's about one in the morning, and I'm a little dead inside from lack of sleep, so I barely skimmed over this before posting. 8) Enjoy and goodnight, folks._

* * *

><p>The sad, kind-of-really fucked up thing was, Darcy was not altogether concerned about waking up in an unknown environment; the pathetic situation had happened way too many times in her life to really worry over it. A little antsy, maybe, some disorientation with a brief bout of instinctual panic that never really went away, but then she's left feeling nostalgic and a little nauseous and seriously, how fucked up is that?<p>

A hum in her mind brought her a little closer to consciousness. _A deeper if somewhat brief look into your subconscious, and I am still no closer to understanding your... You._

"Fuck me," Darcy groans into what she now recognizes as her hideous loveseat, alone. "You're still here?"

_So it would seem._

Good fucking morning to her.

Huh. Well, at least she was still alive.

_Always a bright side_, Loki's voice deadpans.

Darcy groaned again, already feeling a fierce pinch in her neck from the uncomfortable angle she'd slept in. Oh well; small price to pay for passing out on the guy who tried to kill the guy you tased.

Hmmm. There was a lesson in there somewhere. Too bad she didn't feel like looking.

What she did want to look for, however...

Aha! There was Jane's Folgers she'd nicked a few weeks back and kept forgetting about.

She indulged in a half-assed victory dance when the coffeemaker started bubbling.

_Child._

'Spoilsport.' She sticks out a mental tongue.

_How old are you?_ He asks suddenly, startling Darcy enough that she pauses reaching for a mug. She's heard that question enough times to know when it's mocking, but he sounded... Sincere.

"Can't you just, like, look into my brain?" She wonders out loud, grabbing her sunflower mauve mug and standing like a beggar with it in front of the coffeemaker.

_Unfortunately-or perhaps fortunately, considering how your mind works-there are... Walls. Blocks. Doors that I am unable and... Unwilling... To open._

"Huh. Really?" Unable to wait for the rest of the water to boil through, she quickly took the pot half full of coffee out and poured a generous amount into her mug, wincing at the sound of precious fuel sizzling to waste on the hot burner. "Why?"

A flutter; he shrugged. _I do not know all of the details. My very, very educated guess? Since I was unintentionally placed here, your subconscious is 'raising the defense', as it were. It doesn't recognize me._

She hummed in acknowledgement, which quickly turned to a noise unfit for children under sixteen as she took her first glorious sip of steaming coffee.

_...Don't do that again._ He said after a moment, a strange lilt to his voice. Darcy shrugged.

"If you must know," she said, taking a seat at her dingy table and noting with a blooming warmth in her chest she forcefully ignored that everything was put away and clean. "I'm twenty two."

_Gods, you're but a child._ He sounded horrified, and she reveled in the change of roles. _I've taken residence with a child._

"Poor you." She stated blandly, taking another sip of her coffee and sighing at the feel of glorious caffiene filling her bloodstream. "Ugh. I really don't want to go to work." Darcy winced at the thought; she was going to have to confront her boss sometime, she knew, and apologize profusely for her shitty attitude the day before.

She didn't want to, Lord, how she did not want to have that conversation, she didn't want to have this conversation when she was fourteen and she tore the head off all the dolls of her little rat bastard of a cousin(who totally deserved it, by the way, as she had not shut up about how much she missed Auntie, how fun Auntie had been, why wasn't Darcy more like Auntie-how did she think Darcy felt, if she was just that sad over losing her aunt?), but her mother had raised her better than that, had taught her better...

Agh. Damn it. This is what she got for sharing feelings, digging up past memories she was sure she'd buried under copious amounts of alcohol and bad latenight B-rated movies.

"I blame you entirely for this." She mutters petulantly into her cup.

_I did not ask for past admittances,_ he stated coolly. _You gave them up of your own free will._

"Touche."

With a sigh, Darcy drank down the rest of her coffee, consequently scalding her tongue and making her choke just a little bit.

_Start the day off right,_ Loki murmured brightly, almost sounding... Teasing?

She kind of wants to comment, but then again, if the homicidal god of mischief decided that he was in a good mood, who was she really to argue?

She goes through the motions of getting ready, and if she's dragging her feet a little, Loki sure as hell doesn't comment. She half expected him to come up with some smartass comment, maybe about her weight or something this time, but all he does is keep uncharacteristically silent as she slips on jeans and her cursed sweater.

There is one lone banana waiting in her fridge.

"Damn it."

* * *

><p>"I'm sorry," Darcy said dutifully, ducking her head and hunching her shoulders against Jane's drilling stare. "I was a complete and utter bitch yesterday. It was totally uncalled for, and I humbly castrate myself before you."<p>

"...Ace Ventura, really?" Jane dryly said after a moment of silence, and Darcy relaxed. 'Totally forgiven,' she inwardly preened.

_And oh, the world rights itself, _Loki said, faux cheerful tone just an octave away from setting her teeth on edge. She mentally sneered at him before sending Jane a half grateful, half saucy wink.

"B-e-a-utiful," she leered. Jane laughed, and she grinned fully now. "How you doin', Bosslady?"

The older woman shrugged, looking frustrated as she shot a treacherous look over her shoulder further into the 'lab space'. "Eric is hogging all the equipment again," she grumbled.

Darcy clucked her tongue, arm coming out to curl around her bosses shoulders, her other hand reaching up to pat her arm comfortingly. "Want me to go beat him up, honey?"

"Yes." She pouted.

_...This is strangely arousing,_ Loki said, voice carrying a little monotone curiosity, and she quickly disentangled herself from her boss and stepped away. 'That was weird,' she deadpanned back. 'Weirder than if you had a body. Don't do that again.'

"Darcy?" Blinking, Darcy looked over at a slightly concerned looking Jane. "You kind of just... Zoned off there for a minute. Are you feeling okay?"

"Oh yeah," she forced a cheeky smile as Loki chuckled in her mind. "Never better, Bosslady. Let's go get your lab back, eh?"

Though he looked wary when he caught sight of her, Eric gave up hogging the lab space easy enough when he saw how Jane was glaring and how close they were standing together.

As soon as he took half a step away from the old table they were balancing equipment on, Jane was already pouncing, cooing and making all of her favorite undignified 'science' noises as she started writing down equations, which very well could have just been her and Thor's name inside of a heart for all of what Darcy understood.

_Good lord, does she still pines for my brother?_ Loki sounded appalled at the very idea. _I thought she was a woman of science possessing vast intellect. She did not come to her senses?_

'Don't think too bad of her,' Darcy thought, leaning against a nearby filing cabinet while she crossed her arms and grinned at Jane having a minor brain orgasm. 'He did have a pretty fantastic ass. And she might have been a little bit in love with him? That probably counts.'

He snorts.

"I see you two made up," a voice to her right interrupted her little mental conversation, and Darcy jolted before she realized it was just Eric. "I'm a little surprised it was so soon."

She scoffed. "I was a bitch, I don't have a problem owning up to it."

"You really were." When she turned to send him a flat look, the corner of his lips twitched up in a little half smile before he shrugged. "Your words, not mine."

"Didn't mean you had to agree so fast," she muttered, wrinkling her nose. She wouldn't admit she was a little relieved when the older man let out a quiet laugh, reaching up to give her arm a quick, comforting squeeze before going forward to help Jane.

_Explain this to me._ Loki demanded, barely a beat later. Darcy blinked, struggling not to let her eyebrows shoot up to her hairline.

'Explain what, exactly? And dude, you're pretty talkative today. What's the deal?'

_That interaction, between you and the male. Eric, was it? Explain what just happened._

'You mean... When he patted my arm?'

_And you felt... Reassurance._

'...Oh. Iono, I guess I'm just.. Glad he wasn't mad at me?'

There was silence from Loki, lasting so long that Darcy had already shifted her attention back to watching Jane and Eric bicker over a particularly difficult set of equations so that she was blinking in surprise when his answer finally came.

_What a foolish sentiment. _

Her immediate reaction was to be offended; it wasn't stupid, damn it. It didn't matter if he was a god or if he was a homicidal fucking maniac, he was in her _head_, the very least he could do was pretend to tolerate her silly human feelings.

Except, well, the ruthless statement was delivered a softer tone of voice than she had ever heard him use. It sounded almost... Thoughtful. To be completely honest, it sort of freaked her out.

"Darcy?" Jane's inquisitive face filled her line of sight, and Darcy blinked. "Are you alright? You're not still upset about yesterday, are you?" Suddenly anxious, the older woman began to fidget like a guilty five year old. "Because, I'm so sorry. About what happened... I never should have, I mean, you were being pretty mean, but, that's no reason and no excuse for-"

"Whoa, whoa, there, Bosslady," she cut in, amused despite herself. Darcy tried to give her a reassuring smile. "It's not. Sorry, I'm kind of spacey today. Do you need something?"

Jane paused thoughtfully, eyes narrowed. Eric cut in, "Would you mind going and getting some coffee? _Someone _didn't get much sleep last night."

And, oh, she and Jane both winced at the pointed look accompanying that tone.

"It's not my-" Jane protested, at the same time Darcy made a noise in the back of her throat. "I don't-"

"_Please_?" Eric said, eyes wide and, wow, tired. If possible, Darcy felt _guiltier_.

"Okay," she said, head ducking demurely while Loki choked in her mind. "I'm out. Usual?"

"Yes please," both scientists chorused at once, already reabsorbed back into their work.

"I'm going to get you guys a bell," Darcy decided, watching them in amusement. "A nice little bell, to inform you guys when it's time to eat, and sleep, and probably pee too."

"Shut up!" Is Jane's muffled reply.

_Impudent wench, _Loki remarks without any real malice. Darcy snorted, palming her keys in her pocket, a spring in her step as she makes her way out of the building and into the street, squinting against the sunshine.

She breathes deep, taking in the warm morning air and letting it expand her lungs in a way that calms her earlier frayed nerves. It's nice, and comforting, the way the morning turned out better than she earlier could have hoped.

The walk to the Starbucks was... She wasn't quite sure how to describe it. There was no banter between her and Loki, just an easygoing, comfortable silence that she could almost pretend was natural and was in no way a direct relation to how her and the voice in her head simply had nothing to say.

Nobody bugged her, bumped into her, hit on her, and she didn't catch anyone staring at her tits-it was shaping up to be a _good day_, and hell, who would have known?

There wasn't even a huge line at Starbucks. Doing a mental jig, fist pumping included-Loki snorted-as she made it to the counter in record time.

"I would like," she said brightly to the cute brown haired boy behind the counter. Her mood didn't even shift when she caught him struggling to keep his eyes on her face; good effort, she'd give him points for that. "A-"

"_I am looking for a dwelling!_" A shockingly familiar voice boomed from outside, stopping Darcy cold and effectively having every muscle in her body lock up in tense surprise. "_The dwelling of the fine Lady Foster. Have any of you townsfolk know where I might find it?_"

She should've known.

With a resigned sigh, she let her upper body and head fall forward until it _thunked _heavily against the counter.

"Oh wow," the cute boy gasped. "Is the faire in town or something?"

"Or something," Darcy grumbled into the counter, raising her head to blink a little blearily over her shoulder, and- yep. There was Thor, in all his cape and armored glory. Normally, okay, Darcy would not complain against seeing the hunky god, but, well, after months of having to see Jane looking so beat up over the disappearing act, no phonecalls, no inter-galactic loveletters, _nothing, _she's maybe just a little bit pissed.

With this thought in mind, Darcy whirled around, face set in determination as she marched out of Starbucks to cross her arms expectantly in the doorway, completely ignoring the crowd that was beginning to gather.

Darcy cleared her throat, and, damn it, struggled to keep her firm, no bullshit face on in the presence of Thor's sudden Labrador puppy excitement.

"Lady Darcy!" He crowed, face stretched in a wide, pleased grin.

"_Thor_," she said, and something in her tone or face must have set off warning bells for him, because after a moment he ducked his head, excitement fading until all that was left was a puppy with its tail between its legs caught in the kitty litter box. "What in the _hell _are you doing here? More importantly, _why the hell weren't you here sooner_?"

The man winced, and from the corner of her eye, Darcy caught the movement of people pulling out their cellphones to start taking pictures.

"It is my brother, Lady Darcy." He said gravely, blue eyes serious and concerned on her face. "I fear... He may be after Lady Jane."

_No no no, _Loki suddenly burst out, and Darcy stumbled against the pressure bursting behind her eyes, barely hearing Thor's concerned shout. _No no no brother no why Jane Foster brother always Jane Foster._

'Loki?' She slurred, maybe out loud; she couldn't tell, didn't even realize she was in Thor's arms until his frantic face came into view, lips moving. 'Loki, wh-'

_You mortals! _He raged, and ice snapped against her mind. _You mortals, always you mortals, always Thor, true son of Odin, I am- I will not- no! I will not suffer your indignities even here, brother!_

In an all too familiar swirl of dizziness and nausea, Darcy was gone.


	12. Chapter 12

There is a goddamn migraine in her _eye_.

In a distant part of her mind, Darcy didn't realize this was possible. Had she been drinking again? She needed to stop that. Drinking bad.

It takes her a few hazy moments, but Darcy eventually realizes that, after that realization, she had paused expectantly. Waiting.

Nothing happened.

It was a few more moments before she realized _why._

It was just her.

Her eyes snapped open, panic flaring so bright and sudden that for a moment the pain was pushed to the back of her mind, for a split second forgotten completely as realization took hold.

There was no Loki.

She could-feel him? She knew he was there, knew from the way pain was radiating from her skull, bouncing around and flaring every few moments, but there was no snarky voice, no smartass comments or sullen, petulant silence. It was just her. Her and the pain.

She groaned, inexplicably panicked at the empty silence sharing her thoughts.

"I just can never remember you people cannot teleport," a voice said, harsh and frosty. "So troublesome."

The pain flared bright for a moment, stealing her breath away before blessed cool ice replaced the fire.

"Someone get the plate of that truck," she whimpers, and tries to reach up to cradle her head. Her wrists are caught on something when she tries to move.

A surprised huff is her answer, and it takes her a moment to realize that the grip on her wrists-the voice-is all Loki.

Her eyes slam open, utter panic knocking into her so hard and fast she was momentarily breathless.

"I can't hear you," she blurts out, blinking rapidly to try to clear her blurry vision. "Your voice, it's gone-I mean, it's, I can still feel you, but-Loki, I can't hear you-_say something_-"

"Shut up," he snaps, and she is so surprised by how utterly venomous the words are that she does. "I'm going to only ask you once," he went on, voice low now, dark and promising. She shivered. "And you'll answer me truthfully, because I know when you are lying. Do you understand?"

His grip tightened the barest bit. It took her a moment, but Darcy nodded, swallowing.

"Why were you talking to Thor?"

Oh, Christ. Lie or no lie, any answer she gave was going to screw her over. You don't send a giant firebreathing knight from hell to brutally murder your brother if you were partial towards him.

Oh.

_Oh._

That's right. This was Loki, who had been so ready to kill his own brother and anyone who got in his way. How-how could she so easily forget?

His grip tightened, and Darcy could feel the bones in her wrists grind together.

She wasn't that clever, and she wasn't brave. She was _Darcy_, someone in way over her head, and she couldn't-

She was going to _die-_

Struggling to breathe past the ache in her chest, Darcy said, unable to keep her shoulders or head up any more, "We're friends."

And then the strangest thing happened.

He _let_ go of her wrists, dropping them like he was burned, and raising her head she caught a glance of his face, him rearing his head back away from her like he had just been hit, like she'd just delivered a blow, and-

The ice, as if exposed to a warm summer sun, melted in her mind.

_Another bewitched by my brothers graces. _His voice murmured, echoing like a bell in her quiet mind.

She nearly responded, nearly gaped and told him to stuff his magic, except there was something... Off about this, his voice.

Usually, it felt like he was, well, there. A near tangible presence in her mind. Like a slight pressure, almost like a headcold, except that he was cool and _moving _sometimes and that felt weird, but that was how she came to identify him, sort of.

This was different.

The pressure, his voice, was still there. But that's not where the words were coming from; those words echoed in her head, different in a way she couldn't pinpoint. Almost as if... Almost as if she'd thought them herself.

"Are you going to kill me?" She blurted out to him, heart pounding in something more than what was fear at the answer, more than the prospect of dying, here, now.

_...I could not kill you should I wish to try, _was the wry and somewhat self loathsome reply in her mind, and outside, in-in an apartment-Jesus, she'd been there the entire time? How the hell had she not noticed _that_-his lips twisted in a mockery of a smile, and he said, "You will live another day yet, Darcy, rest assured." And oh, oh _fuck_, that couldn't possible, she couldn't be hearing-

'I can hear your thoughts,' she wailed mentally, not even bothering to check her tone or emotion. It stood to reason if she could hear his, then he could hear hers, right? 'I can _hear _you-'

And the look he sent her, all saucer wide eyes and unhinged jaw, would have been comical had she not been in the middle of a meltdown.

"I can hear your _thoughts_-" she cried out, hands raising up to curl around her skull, fingernails digging in hard. Her voice broke, hysteria and the beginnings of tears making her throat thick, and she couldn't breathe.

"Darcy," he was saying, and she wasn't even sure if it was out loud or not, and that thought started a fresh round of anxiety, horrible terror gripping her by the throat and squeezing mercilessly. "Darcy, listen to-oh, _blast it._"

He grabbed her by the shoulders, and through the tears gathering in her eyes, Darcy could make out his wavering face, eyes grim and lips pressed in a firm, displeased line. It reminded her so much of that first night, when everything normal that made actual sense went to hell in a handbasket, and the tears spilled over.

In the next instant, her eyesight is blurred completely and there is pressure on her mouth.

* * *

><p>When Darcy next wakes up, her first thought is that it is <em>probably <em>not going to be a very good day. She should just keep her eyes closed, roll over, and go back to bed.

A long suffering sigh tickles the edges of her mind, and the sense of relief that overtakes her in that moment leaves her dizzy and disoriented.

_Miss me? _Loki's voice murmurs, low and wicked. Her chest tightens.

"Where did you _go_?" She asked-or tried to, at least. What came out was some sort of raspy croak that burned on the way out and kept on burning, even after she swallowed several times.

_Technically, _he went on now, voice just the barest bit... Contrite? _I never left._

"Why didn't you _say anything_, then?" She demanded.

She still hadn't opened her eyes yet.

Damn, she should've rolled over.

_I had no need to, _he pointed out. _I was right here._

Instead of replying(because if she did, mentally or not, she was going to scream) Darcy popped her head up off the pillow, bleary eyes taking stock of just exactly where she was.

It was a bedroom.

She was sort of tired waking up in unidentifiable bedrooms.

Unlike Jane's, though, she didn't eventually recognize where she was-like Jane's bedroom, everything was white and pristine. The walls nearly hurt to look at, and it actually reminded her of a motel; sterile, no mementos, no recognizable individuality of any kind... Just a nightstand with a lamp, a desk, a dresser and a bed. Which she was in.

The only real color, besides the bland beige of the carpet, was the covers. Deep, rich green on top, a weird cream on bottom that reminded her of whipping eggs for frosting as a kid, adding in the vanilla and butter and sugar while dad laughed and laughed in the next room with his buddies. One of the few good memories she had after her mother died.

"Where am I?" She blurted out, struggling against the blankets that had gotten tangled in her legs and the ache in her chest. Thankfully, Loki didn't comment.

_Come now, _he chastised lightly. _Think about it. It shall come back to you._

Oh, fucking hell. Glaring at the stupid colorful blankets, Darcy shoved them off of her, breathing deeply when she saw she was still in her sneakers and jeans and hoodie.

At least she hadn't slept with anyone.

_Think. _Loki's voice urged gently, and stars burst behind her eyes; everything comes rushing back, apologizing to Jane, Thor, _Loki_-it floods back, floods her mind, overwhelms her for a moment so that she loses all the air in her lungs in a rush. Darcy sways, even if she's sitting down, and the strength to do even that leaves her enough that she slips backwards, smacking the back of her head right against the headboard.

"_Fuck_!"

"You are so articulate," a familiar voice drawls, and through watering eyes, Darcy manages to make out the vague outline of Loki leaning against the bedrooms door frame. "No, truly, your boundless vocabulary never fails to leave me in awe."

"Sarcasm is _not _appreciated, you dickwhistle," she grumbled, hand raising to tenderly prod at the back of her head, and-oh, ow, that was going to be sore for a while. She winced. "Where the hell am I, Loki?"

He lifted one slim shoulder before letting it drop, sauntering into the room with a half smirk on his face that, when she finally blinked the tears from her eyes, she saw was... Well, frankly, flimsy at best.

Immediately she was on guard, distracted only a little(okay, maybe a bit more) by his apparel-instead of his usual green and leather and belts, he was in a play grey teeshirt and jeans. Form fitting jeans, riding low on his hips, a sliver of skin showing between shirt and waistband and-

_Darcy_, Loki's voice snapped. She jerked, and the smirk on the Loki in front of her became just a touch more genuine. Something tickles the edges of her mind, shivery, trembling. She pushes it back.

"How are you feeling?" Loki asked, the change in topic left her reeling.

"Um. Okay?" She said uncertainly, wiggling around under the covers a bit to get a better look at him. "How... Are you?"

He walked in further, rolling his eyes as he settled himself down on the edge of the bed, reclining onto his hands as he crossed his legs at the ankle. "I am asking," he said dryly. "Because you have taken a rather... 'Rough beating', as they say, today."

"You care?" She blurted out, and nearly bit her tongue off.

They stared at eachother in silence, Darcy's mouth partially open and wide-eyed while Loki gave one wary blink.

The whispered _Yes_ passes through them both, leaving her shivering and wondering which one of them had said it. Darcy swallowed.

"I'm doing okay." Her voice comes out more of a mewl, a little breathy, and she coughed to clear it. "I mean, I'm fine. I'm cool. Um, kind of, y'know, curious as to why I'm _here_, but..."

He blinked again, slowly. "You were talking to Thor."

"Uh, if by 'talking' you mean 'gearing up to tear him a new one', then yes, yes I was."

"You- what?"

"He's been gone for _months_," she explained, torn between getting pissed off and getting up, or getting pissed off and stay laying down. "Jane's been torn up for ever." Sighing, she shoved the covers back, wiggling herself up to lean against the headboard and wall. At least she was still wearing clothes.

"You were not-" to her astonishment, Loki actually seemed to cut himself off, lips thinning as he slanted his eyes in displeasure.

And then it dawned on her.

"You thought I was going to _tell him_?" She shrieked, voice rising incredulously. Almost imperceptibly, he winced. "You did! You thought I'd tell him about..." She waved her hand between them.

"Well," he snapped back, and it was almost defensive. "My _darling _older brother arrives, and it is _you _who finds him first. What is one to think?"

"Uh, that I'm maybe not selling out here? What do you think is going to happen if I tell anyone about this? It's not just your ass on the line here, _Trickster_," she snarled, hands clenching and unclenching in the blankets. "I don't know how it works out where you're from, but telling people that I'm hearing voices will get me admitted to a goddamn nuthouse."

"You realize Thor is also from Asgard, don't you?" Loki drawled, and she snapped.

"That's not the _point_! I could have told anyone!" Both in her mind and in front of her, Loki was quiet. Realization began to dawn. "I could have told anyone. Jane, Eric, Cosplay... Even Tony fucking Stark. I didn't. You know I didn't. So this is... This has nothing to do with me and spilling the beans to Thor, right? It's just Thor."

"How _astute._" Loki sneers. "You consider yourself a detective now, do you?"

"I don't have to be when I can _read your mind_!"

Except... She couldn't any more. He was close, close enough to reach out and touch, and she couldn't hear a damn thing.

Pressing her palms to her eyes, Darcy tilted her head back and let out a long groan. 'When in the everloving hell,' she thought desperately. 'Did everything get so fucked up?'

"We need to talk." She said, hands still on her face, voice slightly muffled by her forearms. She felt the bed shift, and her head snapped up so fast that her neck ached. "No," she said, hard-edged and glaring. "_We both _need to talk."

* * *

><p><em>I know, I know, not a lot happening... It's leading up to it, I promise.<br>_

_Loki, you're slipping a bit. Watch your pokerface, girl, haven't you listened to Gaga yet?  
><em>


End file.
